For every corner of the arts that needs serious cinema, exposing the corruption and heartbreak of our everyday world we live in, you’ll always need a fun buddy comedy to cheer you up and remind you of the power of laughs, and this film fits that descriptor to a tee. Nirvana the Band the Show the Movie follows two friends, Matt and Jay, played by Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol, as they try to book a show at the Rivoli by devising crazy plans and stunts. When one of their plans go wrong however, they accidentally take a time machine all the way back to 2008 from where their quest to play at the Rivoli all started. for further context, the movie’s grounds and premise date back from two shows: a Nirvana the Band webseries founded in 2007, and then an actual show that premiered on the network Viceland in 2017. Matt and Jay are clearly no stranger to the audience eye, as they have an established cult fan base from some of the earlier work they did in TV format. But this time they brought the sauce all the way to theaters with indie company Neon being their distributor.
Despite that prior audience from the show, the movie itself does not require context about the past shows or Matt and Jay themselves. director and actor Matt Johnson makes sure to fill you in on the two buddies’ past lore plenty in order to understand the history and weight of their journey as friends. The movie essentially uses time travel to its advantage in one of those ways, with filling you in on their long running history through blasts to the past in the time machine that take them back to their roots as buddies desperate to get a show at the Rivoli. It also uses a number of hilarious B&W flashbacks to tell the story as well and deeper context behind certain situations. the concept of time travel is also used in a number of other ways as well. In terms of figuring out what year or period they’re in, you don’t have to hear it from the two of them, you just know. Camera pans to billboards of older movies and media in the film’s transition to 2008 help fill you into the time period in a hilarious way through the help of pop culture references that are aware of the times and comedic taste of a modern generation. The script itself with time travel as well, Takes multitudes of obvious inspiration from back to the future in a cool but also comedic way in the two buddy’s journey.
Despite the inspiration, it never feels like a direct rip off of Zemeckis’ sci-fi classic, but more so taking the sauce of that film and dabbling their own Nirvana the Band originality onto it. The time travel concept not only allows you to take a time capsule into these two’s longstanding friendship, but it also allows for a thrilling ride that comes along with hilarious jokes to capture the absurdity of time travel through the use of comedic timing as well as off the wall stunts. An obvious fun fact you’ll notice about the film just from watching it is that hardly any of it was filmed in a planned location or cohesively made from scratch set design. Instead, the two creatives of Matt Johnson and Jay McCarrol took to the public streets of Toronto to film all their stunts for the film which is just as impressive as it is insane. The film meshed the utter insanity of this time travel film with everyday public reactions to this insanity, having cinematographer Jared Raab capture these reactions to their stunts from confused pedestrians and civilians which makes for an even more hilarious point out that Matt and Jay are the real butt of the joke more than anything else.
The public filmed stunts almost appear as an optical illusion, making the audience question what’s real or not. The film uses the unrealistic absurdity of this sci-fi comedy thanks to a hard working special effects team making these stunts possible to be put to screen. They also make the stunts appear real as well through the capturing of a dumbfounded public eye, none of which you’d even assume for a moment are paid actors. They also film the stunts on true Toronto locations like the CN Tower or even Drake’s mansion to fool you into questioning and trying to decipher whether its real, and when not, how did they make it look real? The film is ultimately a mockumentary personified, mixing grounds of fictional ideas so absurd with reality of real people watching the foolishness all unfold in real time with the backdrop of the true Canadian land of Toronto. Its also a hilarious time at the theaters thanks to filmmaker Matt Johnson as well as Jay McCarrol, who both contribute to some of the most intuitive indie filmmaking you’ve seen in the longest and one of the funniest comedies you’ll see all year
Rating: 4.5/5 stars
