“We have to go home, there are no alternatives…”
“We are teenagers, we have a lot of alternatives!!!“
When I learned that I would be able to preview “a film about Green Day“the first instinct was enthusiasm. Immediately afterwards, however, I admit, a doubt crossed my mind: what if it was just a well-packaged hustler to accompany the release of the band's new material? (Editor's note: in fact the single “I'm Never Gonna RIP“, is already available on all digital platforms and anticipates the new soundtrack album of the film, released on 31 July 2026 and which you can pre-listen/pre-purchase from here).
I sit on the soft red armchairs in the room. The lights dim, the buzz dies down and, even before the film begins, the unmistakable smile of Billie Joe Armstrong. He welcomes us, jokes that it's too late to run out for popcorn, and tells us how proud he is of the movie we're about to see. Because, he explains, beyond the cinematic fiction, that story really talks about them: about the misadventures, the kilometers covered, the hopes and all those sensations experienced at the beginning, when Green Day were just three guys with a van, a few songs and an enormous desire to play.
Premiered at the 2025 Toronto International Film Festival, Nimrods (a Green Day comedy) it's the new film by Lee Kirkformer director of The Giant Mechanical Man And Ordinary World. But, more than a film about Green Day, it is a film with a profoundly analogue soul. Everything comes to life from an old cassette recorder that belonged to Tommy's deceased father, on which his band records the demo intended for the band. And, perhaps, it is not even a coincidence that the young band is called precisely Analog Dogs. Because “analog”, in Nimrodsit's not just the medium on which music is recorded: it's the way in which friendship, dreams and travel are told. A cassette tape delivered in person, a telephone number written in pen, chance encounters, path errors and people capable of changing the fate of the protagonists much more than any pre-established plan.
The film follows the adventures of the Analog Dogs, an imaginary punk-rock band from Kansas City, and its members Tommy (Mason Thames)Fred (Kylr Coffman) and Chad (Ryan Foust)embark on a journey as unlikely as it is overwhelming.
Tommy, the band's singer and guitarist, tries to process his father's death by taking refuge in music. He lives with a mother with a hippie soul (Jenna Fisher) and an older brother, Wayne (Keen Ruffalo), a disillusioned taxi driver who never misses an opportunity to belittle him and bring him back down to earth. Fred, the bassist, is instead the most authentic embodiment of the punk spirit: impulsive, childish, over the top, but also profoundly alone, looking for a place in the world and someone who will finally take him seriously. Lastly, Chad is the drummer of the group, the most shy and submissive of the three. Crushed by his parents' expectations and never completely convinced of pursuing that dream, he sometimes remembers Stu di “The Hangover”: dragged by events rather than truly a protagonist, but capable of providing some of the funniest moments of the film.
The narrative point takes shape after a meet & greet of the real Green Day in Kansas City. The three boys manage to give the band a cassette with their demo and a phone number scribbled in pen on the case. For fun, Tré Cool actually dials that number before their eyes, but naturally he does it from a private number, transforming that gesture into a little joke that will remain one.
The Analog Dogs return home convinced that they have lived the most important day of their lives, telling everyone about the meeting with their idols and the enthusiasm with which, at least in their eyes, they had welcomed their music. Wayne takes the opportunity, determined to get revenge on Tommy for a prank he suffered in the past. With the complicity of a friend who pretends to be Tré Cool, they invite the band by telephone to open Green Day's New Year's concert in Los Angeles. Tommy totally falls for it and, without thinking twice, convinces Fred and Chad to steal his older brother's taxi and set off on a three-day trip across the United States. It is from this moment that Nimrods it abandons the tracks of the classic teenage comedy and transforms into a road movie as crazy as it is unpredictable, punctuated by the Green Day soundtrack.
From here begins a series of episodes which, in addition to delving into the character of the three protagonists and their relationship, pay homage to the imagery of the great American road movie. After Fred fills up with the wrong fuel, the Analog Dogs end up in a dive along the highway, packed with metalheads and the scene of a battle between bands that inevitably draws The Blues Brothers. This time, however, they are the ones who win the contest and the 500 dollar prize, money that could get the journey back on track. The joy lasts very little: having discovered that they are minors, the owner takes back the entire winnings. But when the customers discover that those three boys are trying to reach Green Day, they decide to help them in the most unlikely way possible: by giving them an old ice cream van.
The journey resumes, with Wayne on their trail, determined to bring them home. During a stop at a gas station the Analog Dogs meet Olivia (Mckenna Grace) and his little sister, who mistake them for ice cream vendors and invite them to a punk party near Amarillo. Here the girl performs with her band, while Fred experiences a surreal psychedelic trip after taking hallucinogenic mushrooms found in the taxi, then ending up reassured by Olivia. Tommy, on the other hand, falls in love with her instantly. When the Analog Dogs' turn comes, their “Freaking Out” sets the audience on fire. A violent downpour turns the concert into a giant mud battle, a tribute to the spirit of Woodstock. At the end of the evening Tommy and Olivia say goodbye, promising to see each other again after the Green Day concert, for that kiss that the trip has just postponed. Then we're back on the road again, with Los Angeles ever closer.
The last stop before Los Angeles is also the one that really puts the Analog Dogs to the test. The tensions accumulated during the trip explode, Chad now seems determined to abandon everything and Tommy and Fred find themselves involved in a surreal misadventure in a motel with a Hitchcockian flavour. When it seems that their dream has finally vanished, a final, unexpected twist calls everything into question and offers the three boys one last chance to reach the New Year's concert and chase the reason why they left.
What happens in LA, however, I prefer not to tell you in detail. I can only tell you that Nimrods he has the courage not to choose the easiest path: that of the dream coming true exactly as it was imagined. None of the Analog Dogs really get where they imagined they would go. Yet everyone finds their place: some on stage, some behind the scenes, some simply making peace with themselves.
This is perhaps the most beautiful message of the film. It doesn't just speak to Green Day fans, but to everyone who has at least once felt like an outsider. Because dreams, sometimes, don't come true as we imagined them: they take a different path, often more unpredictable, but no less authentic. It's the same look with which Billie Joe Armstrong remembered the band's beginnings: “I had a young and optimistic point of view.” And it is that naive, almost unconscious optimism that runs through every frame of Nimrods.
As far as I'm concerned, it was a surprise. Not only because as a Green Day fan I found dozens of quotes and small gifts scattered along the journey, but because Lee Kirk chose to tell this story in a anything but conventional way, without ever looking for the easiest shortcut. And no, in the end he wasn't a hustler at all. It was just a great movie.
Daniel D`Amico for SANREMO.FM
