Plot: When Tommy receives a phone call inviting his band to open for Green Day on New Year’s Eve, he doesn’t realize it’s an elaborate prank by his older brother, Wayne. Desperate to believe his life is about to change, Tommy steals Wayne’s car and begins driving his band from Kansas City to Los Angeles, hell-bent on getting there in three days. What follows is a rowdy and uproarious road trip across America, inspired by Green Day’s early days of touring in a van, years before the release of their breakout record Dookie.
Review: Nothing makes me feel older than Gen Z’s nostalgia for the 1990s. Maybe this is cosmic comeuppance for me because I remember seeing Detroit Rock City in 1999, which treated a teen cover band’s obsession with KISS in 1978 with a similar reverence that we see the protagonists of Nimrods feel for Green Day. Rather than be set in the 90s heyday of the punk band, Nimrods takes place in contemporary Kansas City and follows the main trio as they embark on a road trip that parallels the early days of Green Day before they became rock stars. Featuring supporting appearances from Fred Armisen, Jenna Fischer, Angela Kinsey, and Green Day themselves, Nimrods is a familiar and pretty formulaic coming-of-age story that doesn’t offer many surprises but is full of enough genuine emotion and humor as well as a soundtrack chock full of Green Day songs that it will appeal to a wide audience looking for a feel-good comedy with some memorable songs.
Nimrods follows a trio of seventeen-year-olds: guitarist Tommy (Mason Thames), bassist Fred (Kylr Coffman), and reluctant drummer Chad (Ryan Foust). Tommy, who wants to follow in his late father’s footsteps as a musician, and Fred are obsessed with Green Day and want to sneak into their Kansas City concert. Meeting the band at a local record shop appearance, they are pranked by Tommy’s older brother, Wayne (Keen Ruffalo), that the band wants to enlist their band, Analog Dogs, to open for them in Los Angeles on New Year’s Eve the following week. Convinced that this is their shot at fame, the three steal Wayne’s car and head out for California armed with Chad’s credit card and their instruments. When Wayne realizes what Tommy has done, he and his friend Keith (Ignacio Diaz-Silverio) head after them.
As they travel west, Tommy, Fred, and Chad encounter all of the requisite road trip craziness you would expect from having seen countless movies like this before. They make a stop at a rural bar where they have to play to a country music-obsessed crowd, they run into a creepy motel run by a Norman Bates-esque Fred Armisen, and they meet up at a party full of like-minded musicians, including skater girl and singer Olivia (Mason Thames’ real-life girlfriend, McKenna Grace), with whom Tommy becomes infatuated. There are also moments of dine-and-dash, switching cars, and a hallucinogenic trip on magic mushrooms that check all of the boxes for a movie like this. Nothing unexpected really happens, but you don’t really need it to because the film is full of heartfelt emotion and rings true far more than many coming-of-age movies have in recent years. Despite some thinner elements like Tommy and Wayne dealing with the death of their father, and their mother, Joyce (Jenna Fischer), frantically trying to find them, the majority of Nimrods works thanks to the easy-going chemistry between Mason Thames and Kylr Coffman.
There could easily have been a fever-dream ending to this story that defied logic even more than the idea of three teens without driver’s licenses making their way thousands of miles across the country and successfully sneaking into a major Los Angeles concert venue without security stopping them and then making their way to be the opening act for a major rock band, but even in the realm of suspension of disbelief that would have been too much. There are already moments that border on cliché, but Nimrods keeps itself relatively grounded within the confines of this story. The use of Green Day’s music as the core soundtrack fits with the bands large catalog featuring their biggest songs punctuating key moments in the plot as well as some lesser known songs from their early days and an all-new one, “I’m Never Gonna R.I.P.”, highlighting the movie. There are also songs performed by the main character’s band, Analog Dogs, along with McKenna Grace performing some of her music and a few songs by bands The Paradox and Ultra Q.
It also helps that there is a clear love for Green Day that runs through the film. Writer and director Lee Kirk developed the story for Nimrods alongside Green Day’s Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool, and Mike Dirnt. The band members are credited collectively as producers and have a story-by credit, as does concert producer Live Nation. Lee Kirk, who previously directed Billie Joe Armstrong in 2016’s Ordinary World, has a clear affinity for Green Day but does not try to turn Nimrods into an ode to the band. Green Day is intrinsic to the plot, but the characters’ quest to get to the concert serves as a vehicle for the story, which fictionalizes aspects of the band’s actual experiences on the road in their early days. Anyone who has been on any sort of road trip will relate to the experiences these characters have on their journey, but I would imagine struggling bands traveling from gig to gig will find a lot to connect with as well.
With plenty of casual profanity, sex jokes, and casual drugs, Nimrods feels more realistic than some coming-of-age movies that try to idealize the experience of growing up. Like Green Day’s punk rock roots, Nimrods successfully get into the dirt and drawbacks of trying to succeed with everything against you. And, like Green Day’s transformation into the mainstream, the movie also appeals to wider audiences who may not be familiar with or like the band’s music. Nimrods is a nice movie and one that checks all of the boxes to tell a story that will make you smile while also serving as a satisfying visual greatest-hits album for one of the most popular bands of the last thirty years.
Nimrods opens in theaters on August 14th.