THE ADVENTURES OF POWER
Written & Directed by Ari Gold
Produced by Andrea Sperling
Released by Variance Films
USA. 89 min. PG-13
With Ari Gold, Michael McKean, Jane Lynch, Shoshannah Stern, Chiu Ling Chiu & Adrian Grenier
 

Christopher Guest has attracted many fans over the years, and his films have birthed a new subgenre of parodies about marginalized, overly-earnest performers. Here, Air Gold does to air drum competitions what Guest did to aging folk singers in A Mighty Wind and aging metal bands in This is Spinal Tap. Gold wrote, directed, and stars as Power, an offbeat air drum aficionado of such skill that it’s possible for competitors to die while trying to match his showmanship. It’s his only love, and every movement he makes is infused with drumming.

But his father, a hardened union worker, thinks his son is throwing his life away, and his aunt smiles at Power but still treats him like a child. (His father is played by Michael McKean and his aunt by Jane Lynch, so of course their attitudes don’t last forever.) Superstar drummer Dallas Houston (Adrian Grenier) has the same problem. Although he’s a drummer popular enough to appear on MTV Cribs (which, unfortunately, we see in its entirety), his tycoon father thinks Dallas’s lifelong dream to be an air drummer is not just disreputable but disgusting.

Both boys run away from home to compete in a local New York air drum contest. Power trains with a ragtag air drum band in New Jersey, run by a drummer with hooks instead of hands, and Dallas hopes to win based on his popular appeal as a real drummer—but is Power talented enough to win? (Yes. Obviously.)

There are lots of halfway funny gimmicks along the way—Jane Lynch howling at the moon during a three-minute montage featuring “In the Air Tonight”—but there’s nothing engaging about the film’s overemphasis on Power. Guest’s parodies wouldn’t work without his typically large ensemble, but Power, the film’s main focus, is ridiculous, and there’s nothing of substance to gird Gold’s humor with affection or insight. The plot takes a long time to reach its obvious conclusion, and the jokes often fall flat, relying more on the cast’s comic timing to sell the punch line than the punch line itself. Overall, Power is a silly character without the genius of Guest’s Peewee or Chauncey Gardner. Zachary Jones
October 9, 2009