Ahoy, squirts! Quint here. Thank God, another movie I can like whole-heartedly, without any reservations whatsoever.
THE ADVENTURES OF POWER is a crazy, hilarious, bizarre, insane movie. And all in the best ways possible.
The story is simple. You follow a pretty traditional underdog formula. There’s an underachiever working alongside his father, even though it’s not his dream. His talent isn’t understood by his working class father (played by Michael McKean). No, he’s not a race car driver, a writer, a boxer, a man who dances in the woods or a male model. Our lead, Power (played by director Ari Gold), is an air drummer.
You know, like air guitar. But with drums.
I don’t know why this works. It’s ridiculous. It’s goofy, but it works.
Power is sent on a quest that takes him from an underground air drum fight in Mexico (where he is almost killed when they throw Rush’s Tom Sawyer at him and he attempts to air drum it standing up) to Jersey and New York, where the national air drum competitions are held. The grand prize is a whopping $2,000.
While in Mexico he is noticed by Steven Williams (the cool bounty hunter chasing Jason in the otherwise shitty JASON GOES TO HELL), a handless former ‘80s funk drummer who now coaches air drum teams. Power joins this team, populated by a muscle-bound hothead, a short New Yorker, an Arabic center man who is the heart and strength of the team and The Haitian from HEROES,
The B story involves Michael McKean organizing a strike at the plant he works at, run by a greedy villain named Dick Houston. Houston’s son is a country star named Dallas Houston, played with gusto by Entourage’s Adrian Grenier. Dallas Houston is awesome. He’s good looking, rich, silver spoon about as far up his butt as it can be (to the degree that we even get a scene where he plays catch with his dad… with a golden football).
The way they shoot Grenier is hilarious. They film him in country star cliché style… shots of him with his big cowboy hat and belt buckle laid out barefoot on a white bearskin rug, etc.
And did I mention he incorporates rap into his country music?
But in his heart he wants to be an air drummer. He’s a real drummer, but since he was a kid he loved miming drums even more than playing them, so we end up in a situation where the son of the strike leader and the son of the greedy owner have to compete, which is being eagerly watched by the strikers and the corporate swine.
Jane Lynch (40 YEAR OLD VIRGIN) has a bit part and she’s great in it, too. All the supporting cast is great, actually, especially Shoshannah Stern who is a deaf evangelical Christian who falls for Power.
I had a blast with this movie and the cast seemed buzzed by the audience reaction. This one’ll get picked up quickly, just watch.
The Q&A was a lot of fun, even though Shoshannah’s signer (who is a very nice guy, by the way… I met him when I interviewed Adrian, Ari and Shoshannah earlier in the day) plopped right down in front of my view… check it out:
More in the pipeline, including my thoughts on the premiere of BE KIND REWIND and the great ANVIL!: THE STORY OF ANVIL!
-Quint
quint@aintitcool.com
