Directed by: Lee Kirk
Written by: Lee Kirk and Green Day
Starring: Mason Thames, Kylr Coffman, Ryan Foust, Jenna Fischer, Mckenna Grace, Keen Ruffalo, Ignacio Diaz-Silverio, Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt
Runtime: 107 minutes
‘Nimrods’ is a fun road-trip flick that celebrates freewheeling, hazardous teen id
Tommy (Mason Thames), Fred (Kylr Coffman), and Chad (Ryan Foust) are suburban high school kids who escape from their realities with their punk band, Analog Dogs.
Now, their lives in Kansas City are not dreadful nightmares or anything. The boys have “normal” existences and work through scholastic drudgeries like other teens. Although Tommy – the guitar player and lead singer – lost his dad. Tommy, his mom, Jodi (Jenna Fischer), and his older brother, Wayne (Keen Ruffalo), miss him terribly, but the band is a glorious garage-gathering pastime.
The rock trio shares groovy chemistry when they play and offers playful adolescent banter when not picking or strumming guitars (Tommy and Fred) or striking the drums (Chad), including Tommy scolding Chad for arriving at practice on time, as he explains that punk-band artists should show up late!
Come on, Chad. Get with the program!
They have serious dreams of filling and rocking arenas someday but do not possess the know-how or the funds to reach a rock-and-roll promised land. However, their fortunes dramatically change when Green Day stops in KC during their tour, and the high schoolers mistakenly believe that GD invited Analog Dogs to open for them at the Hollywood Palladium in La La Land on New Year’s Eve.
(For the record, the Palladium is a fabulous venue!)
This is Analog Dog’s path, and director/co-writer Lee Kirk’s “Nimrods” is a fun road-trip flick that celebrates freewheeling, hazardous teen id with frank humor and superb buddy vibes from our young actor trinity.
For three 17-year-olds – with only $27 and no car keys in their pockets and zero adult life experience - traveling 1,620 miles from KC to LA seems as unimaginable as stumbling upon a rocket ship and flying it to Mars, but our heroes attempt to find a way.
I mean, Tommy, Fred, and Chad will open for Green Day! Well, they believe it anyway.
“Nimrods” channels the goofy hijinks of Todd Phillips’ “Road Trip” (2000) with the impossibilities of Jim Carrey and Jeff Daniels’ tour in Peter Farrelly’s “Dumb and Dumber” (1994). Granted, Thames, Coffman, and Foust don’t reach the comedic heights of the stars in Farrelly’s all-time classic comedy. However, they embrace a close collaborative comic harmony as Jonah Hill, Michael Cera, and Christopher Mintz-Plasse did in “Superbad” (2007).
Tommy – as the lead singer - is the leader of the troupe, while Fred frequently applies fuzzy logic, and Chad attempts to be the constant voice of reason. Their dynamic elicits belly laughs and smiles throughout the picture, including when Fred attempts to pool their funds together at a diner, overindulges in hallucinogens, and causes a gasoline mishap.
These boys try their absolute best to reach the Left Coast while dodging parental figures back home and on-the-road perils in front of them. Tommy, Fred, and Chad have less than a week to get to Cali, and Kirk often feeds the audience with the days on the calendar on the big screen, giving us a countdown to the kids’ potential glory or doom, but we have no idea the individual cities in which they encounter. The screenplay doesn’t provide a map of their progress, and that works just fine.
The movie’s location management department and cinematographer David Robert Jones seem to always present a setting in some Nowhereland that feels like either a Midwestern Burning Man or a lonely small-town exit off Highways 335 or 40. Our heroes barely know where they are located, and the audience feels this driving-by-the-seat-of-their-pants tone as well.
However, Tommy, Fred, and Chad don’t carry all the screen time alone, as Kirk and the casting department hired complementary supporting actors to share the runtime who meaningfully add emotional and amusing elements to the journey. Mckenna Grace gives a charming performance as a potential love interest, and Ruffalo builds tangible brotherly moments with Thames. Meanwhile, one of Fischer’s “The Office” (2005-2013) co-stars delivers a memorable cameo, and a pair of Gen X comedians pop in out of nowhere to successfully lend their hilarious gifts to the film’s cause.
Speaking of causes, Green Day legends Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt make on-screen appearances through grounded everyday discourse and music!
This flick is a labor of love for Green Day, as the band has writing credits for the movie. It’s based on an initial idea from Billie Joe, and Kirk spoke with the Northern California band about their real-life adventures on the road as inspiration for Tommy, Fred, and Chad’s trek.
“Nimrods” is a must-see for Green Day fans, and it lands with a similar pronounced cinematic punch as “I Love You, Man” (2009) did for RUSH fans, and full disclosure, I love both bands. Still, you don’t have to be a Green Day fanatic to enjoy this entertaining ride.
“Do you have the time” to catch “Nimrods”? Well, I recommend making the time.
Jeff’s ranking
3 / 4 stars
