Fred Armisen is the clear standout in the new teenage road trip comedy Nimrods—he’s strange and genuinely funny, and while the words that come out of his mouth aren’t outrageous, they come from an angle that’s about 30 degrees off from reality, and it’s that ability to surprise that makes him shine.
Unfortunately, he’s also only in the movie for about five minutes, playing a creepy motel owner, and Armisen’s presence underscores just how depressingly bland the entire rest of the movie is, especially for something that uses the words “punk rock” so freely. The movie is about the Analog Dogs, a trio of high school musicians who love the band Green Day and who are tricked into thinking they’ll get to open for their heroes, if only they can figure out how to get from their homes in Kansas City all the way to Los Angeles. Two of the band members are the sort who will climb out of the window in the middle of class just to go cause mischief around town, the third is a nebbishy nerd-type that I guess is required in a post-McLovin’ world, although no one could ever truly accuse McLovin’ of being meek.
They steal some cars and have some adventures along the way, all in the name, apparently, of punk rock, and they eventually get to where they’re going, and things turn out basically great. The problem is that you’d be hard-pressed to outline more than one or two character traits for any of the main cast, and the events that happen on the way just kind of happen, because they need to fill the time somehow. The movie takes shortcuts in both its human relationships and its plot points, neither of which amount to much of anything in the long run, other than a bit about a dead dad that doesn’t really feel earned.
It does seem like everyone has good intentions here, so that’s a welcome feeling, but the movie has such little interest in moving beyond anything but the most basic version of this story. And as for its perception of punk rock… someone get these kids a bootleg tape of a Poison Girls record. That’ll change their lives.
Nimrods is in theaters.
