I caught an early daytime showing of Nimrods, and the theater was surprisingly empty. Maybe twenty people total. A little disappointing—Especially for a movie built around Green Day. In the 90s, the theater would’ve been fuller.
Nimrods is loosely inspired by stories from Green Day’s early years on the road, before everything exploded with their major-label debut, Dookie (1994). Green Day themselves, Bille Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt, and Tre Cool serve as producers. I read that Billie Joe came up with the basic premise — an idea that apparently took nearly four years to finally make it onto the screen.
Director Lee Kirk and Armstrong have worked together before. Kirk directed Ordinary World (2016), where Armstrong played the lead and contributed music to the soundtrack. So there’s already a familiarity here, and more importantly, a genuine affection for this particular world.
The story follows three high school friends — Tommy (Mason Thames), Fred (Kylr Coffman), and Chad (Ryan Foust) — who play together in a band called Analog Dogs.
They’re Green Day obsessives. They record demos on analog tapes. They want to play music. They want to get the hell out of their small town. Basically, they’re young enough to believe that getting into a car with no real plan might actually solve everything. Then someone cruelly convinces them they’re going to open for Green Day in California on New Year’s Day.
They have to get themselves from Kansas City to Los Angeles. So naturally…They steal a car. And hit the road. From there, Nimrods becomes a road movie. They stumble into biker bars, perform at an open mic night, sleep in roadside motels, meet strange people, and slowly discover that crossing the US is slightly more complicated than simply pointing the car west.
The supporting cast is excellent. Fred Armisen is fantastic as Jim, the creepy owner of one of those roadside motels where you immediately know something isn’t right. McKenna Grace also shows up as Tommy’s love interest and quickly becomes one of the film’s highlights. She has tremendous screen presence, and getting to hear her perform one of her own songs gives the movie one of its more genuine musical moments.
Still, I wanted the road trip itself to get a little crazier. A little raunchier. A little more dangerous. The movie clearly wants some of that Detroit Rock City energy — young idiots crossing the country because seeing their favorite band feels more important than anything else happening in their lives. But Nimrods never completely lets itself off the leash. The adventure feels a little too safe. And for a movie inspired by early Green Day…safe probably shouldn’t be the word that comes to mind.
The timeline is deliberately hazy, which I actually enjoyed. This clearly isn’t the modern world. There are camcorders, flip phones, payphones, cassette tapes, and absolutely no social media constantly explaining where everyone is. Much of the movie was shot along Route 66, giving everything this strangely timeless quality. It could be twenty years ago.Thirty years ago. Yesterday.It doesn’t really matter.
These three kids are obviously stand-ins for the members of Green Day, but thankfully the film never turns into a conventional musical biopic. It’s not interested in recreating Billie Joe Armstrong’s life beat-for-beat. Instead, it borrows the spirit of those early stories. Three kids. A band. A shitty car. And the completely irrational belief that music might somehow get them somewhere better.
The smartest thing the movie does is how it uses Green Day’s catalog. Sometimes the songs function as part of the score. Sometimes they arrive during pivotal moments. Other times they’re actually performed onstage. The music never feels like someone simply hit shuffle on a greatest-hits album.
And eventually, everything leads to the climactic New Year’s Eve concert at the Palladium in Los Angeles. That’s where the movie finally delivers. It’s deeply satisfying. Mostly because after everything they’ve done to get there, simply standing inside that building seeing Green Day perform feels like a victory.
Nimrods is ultimately a road-trip movie made primarily for Green Day fans. It could’ve been wilder. It probably should’ve been messier. But underneath the comedy, music, and teenage stupidity, there’s something I connected with, and enjoyed.
NIMRODS. (2026). THREE OUT OF FIVE POPCORN BAGS🍿🍿🍿
Rod Rioja 