Nimrods

If you are a fan of the ’90s pop-punk heroes, Nimrods is a major work. This film is very much an extension of the Green Day brand: the band as a collective have “produced by” and “story by” credits and the story is heavily inspired by their early years as struggling musicians on the road, before they became Millennial pop-punk heroes. The plot revolves around three obsessive Green Day fans, and Green Day also star as themselves, the film culminating in a gig in which multiple classic Green Day songs are performed.

That might suggest strictly-for-fans-only territory — but what is surprising about Nimrods (which previously carried the title ‘New Year’s Rev’) is how accessible and charming it manages to be. It’s directed by Lee Kirk, who ten years ago directed Green Day lead singer Billie Joe Armstrong in the semi-fictional film Ordinary World. The filmmaker clearly has a lot of love and affection for the band, but this story trains the focus on its young cast, Green Day acolytes loosely based on the band members themselves.

Our three scruffy heroes here are rebellious truant Tommy (The Black Phone’s Mason Thames), green-haired masturbator Fred (Kylr Coffman), and bespectacled “narc” Chad (Ryan Foust), who the other two lambast for being too reliable (“If you want to be a punk rocker, you’ve got to be late!”). Tapping into the Gen-Z obsession with ’90s nostalgia, these three are obsessed with Green Day and juvenilia of that era: their band, in fact, is called Analog Dogs (they get repeatedly mistakenly pronounced as “Anal OG Dogs”), and they delight in recording demos on a four-track and filming their punky exploits on an old-school camcorder.

Kirk reflects this in his filming style, shooting Kansas City grungily and grainily as a kind of suburban Nowheresville, USA. After a prank goes wrong, the band incorrectly believe they are supporting Green Day at their headline New Year’s Eve gig in Los Angeles, and scrabble together whatever resources they can to make the journey West — along the way meeting all manner of colourful characters, including indie-cool love interest Olivia (Mckenna Grace) and an eccentric motel owner (Fred Armisen).

Along the way, the familiar formula of a coming-of-age road-trip can be keenly felt. Some comic interludes — Fred takes mushrooms; hijinx ensue — land a little too broadly, and you find yourself wishing that the characters had been fleshed out a touch more. The looming absence of Tommy’s late father is the only real emotional backstory we get.

So, it’s scrappy and a little rough around the edges. You sense that’s exactly how Green Day would like it. The film’s heart and sincerity are never in doubt, and if the ending is predictable, it’s nothing less than sweet and triumphant. And if you are a Green Day fan — or at the very least had working ears during the 1990s and early 2000s — you will be cheered by the excess of the band’s anthems on the soundtrack: of course mournful ballad ‘Wake Me Up When September Ends’ plays during a key second-act turning point! Of course ‘Good Riddance (Time Of Your Life)’ plays as the film ends! For all its faults, Nimrods is a joyful expression of what it means to be young. While listening, crucially, to Green Day.