`LOGO' HITS HIGH NOTES.

Byline: Bob Strauss Daily News Film Critic

Ten minutes into ``Hard Core Logo,'' you start wondering when the thing is going to get funny.

It is, after all, a mockumentary, like ``This Is Spinal Tap'' and ``Fear of a Black Hat'' and a dozen other, duller satiric comedies that have masqueraded as documentary looks at a fictitious band/artist/production/political campaign.

But just around the time you realize that this movie's irony is not necessarily there to serve humor, an appreciation of what director Bruce McDonald is really up to emerges. Shrewdly choosing a made-up punk outfit for his purposes, McDonald examines, in the starkest terms possible, how commercial considerations eroded even the most radical of rock's anti-establishment genres.

The idea here is that a Vancouver thrash outfit of the '80s, Hard Core Logo, reassembles in the '90s to play a benefit concert for the band's mentor, Bucky Haight (Julian Richings), a musician whose anti-gun activism reportedly has gotten him shot. Joe Dick (Hugh Dillon), Logo's confrontational lead singer and apparently a loser since the band broke up, is the catalyst behind the successful fund raiser.

With the band back together, Joe proposes a cross-Canada reunion tour, and with a video crew in tow (led by McDonald himself in a further blurring of reality lines), they set off in a ratty step van toward a second, inevitable and rancorous breakup.

The film charts in excruciating detail how personal conflicts between the overbearing Joe, sellout guitarist Billy Tallent (Callum Keith Rennie), the schizophrenic, pharmaceuticals-dependent bassist John Oxenberger (John Pyper-Ferguson) and the generally misanthropic drummer Pipefitter (Bernie Coulson) fester and ooze over long nights on the road and disappointing receptions in stale beer clubs. Eventually, the angry musicians even start turning on members of the camera crew, who do their best to incite further conflict.

Deceptions and hypocrisies ultimately come to light that call the whole punk ethic into question. The film's dark genius lies in the way it exposes everything in rock as just a passing pose, no matter how virulent or nihilistic the fashion it assumes. With that unforgiving attitude, the movie is punkier than many of the movement's bands turned out to be.

While all the actors are thoroughly convincing, Dillon stands out as Joe, a guy trying rather too hard to remain the last of the pogo pirates. His fury and passion - the concert footage evokes a Black Flag show, while the songs themselves boast a blistering, X-like intensity - are apt camouflage for an astounding cynicism, and Dillon not only keeps the mask in place, he finds true poignance in the rotting soul behind it.

``Hard Core Logo'' is like a quart injection of rye whiskey straight into the frontal lobe. It's rude, raucous stuff, and far and away the smartest music scene movie of this disco-dulled and glitter-clogged year.

THE FACTS

The film: ``Hard Core Logo'' (R; drug use, language, violence).

The stars: Hugh Dillon, Callum Keith Rennie, John Pyper-Ferguson, Bernie Coulson, Julian Richings.

Behind the scenes: Directed by Bruce McDonald. Written by Noel S. Baker, based on Michael Turner's book. Produced by Christine Haebler and Brian Dennis. Released by Cowboy Booking International.

Running time: One hour, 32 minutes.

Playing: Sunset 5, West Hollywood.

Our rating: Three and one half stars.

CAPTION(S):

Photo

Photo: Hugh Dillon, left, and Calllum Keith Rennie are head-banging punk rockers in ``Hard Core Logo.''