OMG. We have such a crush on this movie. Anvil! - for the ignoramuses among you – were, back in the day, one of the most influential metal bands of all time. This brilliant, deft documentary from former Anvil roadie Sacha Gervasi charts the forgotten group’s 2007 comeback tour and reminds us that even when you don’t love rock, it’ll still love you. Slash, Lemmy, and other hard-living demigods turn up to say “We Are Not Worthy” as Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and the coincidentally-named Robb Reiner, now in their fifties, hit the road one more time.
Fans of Spinal Tap will relish the film’s knowing curtseys; there’s a self-referential ‘Hello Cleveland’ along the way, a Big in Japan denouement and a Hungarian gig our chaps can only wish had a puppet show. But this rockumentary is precisely as sweet and touching as it is funny. Watching Mr. Kudlow delivering school dinners and borrowing money from his respectable Jewish siblings combines the emotional punch of Mickey Rourke doing deli time in The Wrestler with the absurdity of Nigel Tufnel’s ‘audition’ for shoe salesmanship.
A lasting movie high that makes Slumdog Millionaire look like Ken Loach, we say, “This film goes all the way to 11.”