There is something genuinely fun about a movie that starts with a prank and ends up being about everything that actually matters. Nimrods, the Green Day-inspired road trip comedy directed by Lee Kirk, follows three teenage friends who pile into a van and drive cross-country to Los Angeles because they believe their band has been booked to open for Green Day on New Year's Eve. The catch is that it's a prank set up by one of their brothers. They don't know that. And honestly, neither does the movie care too much, because the journey is the whole point.
The film is rooted in something real. It's based on Green Day's own pre-fame adventures, specifically the years when Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tré Cool were living out of a tour van and playing anywhere that would have them before Dookie turned them into one of the biggest rock bands on the planet. Armstrong has said he always wanted to make a band movie in the tradition of A Hard Day's Night and Quadrophenia, and you can feel that love in the premise. Kirk, who already directed Armstrong in the 2016 film Ordinary World, developed the script directly with the band. The title itself nods to Green Day's 1997 double-platinum album Nimrod, which is exactly the kind of detail that rewards the fans who already know.
The cast here is doing a lot of heavy lifting and seems to be enjoying every second of it. Mason Thames, who most people know from The Black Phone and last year's live-action How to Train Your Dragon, plays the lead. Mckenna Grace is his love interest, and if you've seen either of them in Regretting You, you already know their chemistry is not something you have to imagine. Jenna Fischer and Angela Kinsey are in the supporting cast, which is a very Office reunion energy, and Jenna's real-life husband Lee Kirk directed the whole thing, so there's this wonderful closed loop of people who clearly trust each other making something with genuine warmth. Fred Armisen, Bobby Lee, and Sean Gunn round out the ensemble and you already know none of them are in this to phone it in.
An early review from SFGate called the three lead performances "spot-on" and said the film "hits all the right notes," which is exactly what you want to hear from a movie that premiered at TIFF before most people knew it existed. It was called New Years Rev back then. Nimrods is a better title. It commits to the bit.
The international theatrical run is just two days, August 11 and 14, through Trafalgar Releasing, so this is genuinely a see-it-while-you-can situation. Tickets go on sale July 14. If you want something to watch before you go, pull up Ordinary World. It's a different kind of movie but it gives you exactly the right sense of what Lee Kirk does with the space between a rock song and a genuine human feeling.
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