Critics reviews

In the now overflowing annals of rock docs, there's still nothing else quite like Spheeris' unprecedentedly intimate hangouts with L.A. punk pioneers—including Black Flag, the Circle Jerks, the Germs, and X, among others—at the cusp of the 1980s.

That Decline would become a singular pop-historical document is a fact that no one could've predicted at the time. Spheeris wouldn't get so far out ahead of the curve again.

Amusingly, the sleaziest characters in the film are neither the musicians nor their loyal fans, but the ancient promoters who hover around their venues, completely unconcerned with hardcore's reputation for chaos so long as it gets them paid.

Beloved by generations of fans who still routinely regale Spheeris with choruses of "Your movie changed my life!" the decline cycle is the closest cinema will ever come to a flyspeck-on-the-wall study of the volatile interface of angry/funny fucked-up bands and their angry/funny fucked-up fans in Los Angeles—and by extension, around the world.