Un mec ordinaire

I really wanted to like "Ordinary World". The comedy stars Green Day front-man Billie Joe Armstrong as Perry, a just turned middle-aged singer/guitarist on indefinite hiatus from his once-promising rock group. This cat is a fish flung FAR out of water as domesticated husband, father and feckless hardware store sales guy. When presented with the opportunity to celebrate his 40th birthday in grand style he does it up right in a posh New York City hotel suite, together with his ex band-mates and a pack of party animals he's heretofore never met. Natch, shenanigan's soon ensue.

While the hard driving original music Armstrong contributes is fantastic, particularly the amped-up onslaught that mule kick starts the story, the superlatives for this largely lukewarm effort pretty much start and end there.

Writer/Director Lee Kirk thrusts it completely upon Armstrong to carry his movie, as the brilliant musician performs in practically every single one of it's scenes. Now granted, Armstrong's Perry is of decidedly docile demeanor, having ostensibly fallen into the mostly uneventful life he now leads. However, he proves to be just a little TOO passive in this role. To the point where Armstrong's underplaying of his understated character never managed to amplify and fully engage me. In all candor, the same can be said of the turns turned in by the flick's supporting stable of actors, which includes a trio of highly capable pros in Selma Blair, Chris Messina and Fred Armisen.

Still, despite the earnestly honorable intentions, and in keeping with the film's title, all involved here wind up coming off as not much more than...yep...you guessed it.

Ordinary.

One of the best of the year.

Watch any YouTube videos of Billie Joe Armstrong, and you'll witness a modern day punk rock star making out with fans, jumping into the audience, drinking onstage, and expressing wild antics in front of his audience. I think he was built for the screen.

His personality shows through, with the high-pitched voice you rarely hear him speak with, but are so used hearing in song, and expresses a character on screen that both "depresses and enlightens."

Seeing him on screen, at first, witnessing his tattoos on his arms, and realizing, "this is really a movie starring Billie Joe Armstrong" you realize, "how am I watching this..?" -- a stunning movie for fellow musicians, or anyone who grew up with Dookie, or the songs he got famous for, like "Brain Stew" and "When I Come Around."

The individual has literally been in the music industry for pretty much the majority of his life, and he is by far one of the most talented performers for his audiences anywhere, who always seems to appear paradoxically "young" -- youthful -- witty -- amusing -- and never seeming to age beyond his original nineties persona, which gained him so much fortune today.

He deserves better reviews for this work, and I take great pride in adding this as a "DVD" to my movie collection, within all truth and honesty, more than just a little Redbox viewing, or Google Play showing, because I feel this one ought to be added to any and all film-makers -- especially indie, or musicians, DVD collections.

As far as the plot, I don't wish to reveal anything, because I feel this is the kind of movie that speaks for itself. it is highly enjoyable, and charming, to say the least. Watch it knowing as little about it as possible, in this reviewers opinion, and you will enjoy it even more.

Enjoy.

:)

-Brendan

This movie was as expected, it wasn't great but wasn't bad. It was a simple and light hearted movie about a guy going through a mid life crisis and ended as you'd expect. It's a decent enough watch.

This film tells the story of an ex rocker who gave up on his band years ago to have a family. On his fortieth birthday, he experiences a midlife crisis, and splashes out on a presidential suite to party with his friends.

"Ordinary World" is about the seemingly ordinary life of a man who works in his family business. He is a character that people can relate to. It is rather sad that his family do not remember his birthday, something that I can imagine is rather terrible. As his day gets worse, he decides to counteract the downward spiral. The whole premise of the story is quite funny, and I can see both humour and dark humour in the story. I like the ending too, I did not quite expect the wife saying that outside the house to Perry in the dog house! I enjoyed this lighthearted comedy.

If only the first hour of this film was as good as its final twenty minutes. I felt there was a better movie in here somewhere that never really emerged, as the film got mired in awkward and flat humor, plus some plot elements that just didn't ring true.

Billie Joe Armstrong (the lead vocalist for Green Day) stars here as Perry, a former punk rocker who left the band some years before to start a family. Now he's quite a scatterbrained but decent guy going through a midlife crisis. He's having trouble, as he's ready to celebrate his 40th birthday, accepting living in his "ordinary world", as a husband and father of two, and mired in a job with his brother in a family owned hardware store. Thus, the film will follow Perry for one day,as he ends up spontaneously arranging a birthday party at a very fancy hotel, in NYC.

Overall, the movie, written and directed by Lee Kirk, just took way too long to get unraveled, but at least the final parts of the film prevented it from being a complete clunker, in my opinion.