Editor’s Note: Freeline Media critic Mike Fried just caught Paul Rudd’s new movie, Power Ballad, and has some mighty strong feelings about it. Good or bad? Read on!
By MIKE FRIED
Power Ballad
4/5
In what is sure to be one of the nicest movies of the year, Paul Rudd plays Rick Power, a lead singer in a Dublin wedding band. He has given up on any thoughts of glory as he lives with his wife and daughter in Ireland.
Danny Wilson is a former boy band performer who is trying to launch a solo career, and by chance the two meet when Rick’s band plays a castle wedding for one of Danny’s childhood friends. The two hang out for the evening and Rick shares a song that he wrote, “How To Write A Song (Without You).” When Danny is back in Los Angeles, he struggles to come up with a hit single and decides to add this song to his solo album as a new, original song. It becomes a big hit, and Rick keeps telling people that he wrote the song but, of course, no one believes him. Rick’s life starts to fall apart as Danny’s lawyers threaten to sue him if he doesn’t stop pestering their client. And then he’s kicked out of his band when he refuses to play the song and his life turns to shit.
From John Carney, who wowed us with his film Once, this is a film that hits all the right notes. There is even a neat nod to Once made in the film, of course. Paul Rudd is absolutely terrific in a role that seems tailor-made to his funny but oh-shucks relatable guy type of personality. And who knew that Nick Jonas could act? The two of them are perfect together.
There’s a great scene where Rick demos a new track for his 15-year-old daughter and she replies that young people aren’t interested in love. What are they interested in? Rick asks. “Revenge” she replies.
And this movie could have very easily, under lesser hands, turned into just that, a revenge movie or even worse, a revenge comedy; however, in John Carney‘s hands the movie is much more than that. It’s not a movie about a guy who wants money or wants to shame somebody else. It’s a movie about a guy who has been a struggling musician for so many years and just wants the credit, the acknowledgment of having written this song that becomes a worldwide hit.
Rudd is absolutely fantastic in one of his best performances ever. I’m not saying I don’t want him to don the Ant-man suit anymore, but I’d like to see more of these very well done semi-comic roles from him because they suit him so well and he absolutely does have the range. His interactions with Beth Fallon, who plays his daughter (who he wrote the song for 13 years ago) are precious – she is the only one who believes him.
Nick Jonas was merely good. I’m not going to lie. He was better than I expected him to be, but he was just good. This was Paul Rudd’s movie from start to finish. But the two of them together worked well. And, hell, I mean, anyone but Bieber, amiright?!?
But I’d be really remiss if I didn’t mention Peter McDonald in the supporting role of Sandy, former convict, bandmate and best friend to Rick, who brings a sort of crazy manic type of energy to the role. His character is the equivalent of Rhys Ifans’ Spike in Notting Hill and Patterson handles the role with great aplomb, almost stealing the movie.
There’s even a great moment between Patterson and Rudd that could’ve been played as a total syrupy heartfelt moment; but Carney decides to utilize the comedic talents of his two actors and quickly turns a heartfelt scene into a scene where you laugh heartily.
Carney brings everything together into a funny but ultimately satisfying conclusion and presents us with one of the most enjoyable movies of the year.
As Mick Jagger once sang “You can’t always get what you want, but if you try sometimes, well, you just might find, you get what you need.”
That sums up this movie
WATCH IT (more than Once, ha ha)!
Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.
Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.
