London Town

With its boyhood-to-manhood tropes (growing up means getting a girl’s attention and winning an idol’s respect), London Town can’t be taken too seriously. But it’s nice to see part of the Clash’s populist legacy in a fan’s journey.

The film evinces a clear-eyed sense of the limits that a capitalistic society places on its working class.

The movie’s impersonal, conventional telling of a reasonably standard male coming-of-age story almost tends to make the punk milieu it depicts beside the point.

An awkward merger of wide-eyed innocence and political unrest, Derrick Borte’s sweet, almost sugary picture wants to rock but never finds the gumption.

The fantasy of a punk icon for a friend is one thing, but the filmmakers undercut the modest liveliness of their enterprise with a save-the-day storyline that seems far removed from the roiling, anti-authoritative ethos of punk.

All the ingredients for a gritty — if familiar — coming-of-age story are here. But London Town, though spirited, is consistently tension-free.

The raw vigor and protest of punk get co-opted by the movie’s coming-of-age story; it’s not the heartfelt sweetness that’s the chief problem, but how run-of-the-mill and derivative the plot is.