'Nimrods' wants to give Green Day fans the time of their lives

I’ll say this for Green Day. While other big musical acts have been releasing big, immersive IMAX 3D concert films in 2026 (Billie Eilish, Stray Kids), it’s on-brand for the veteran punk rock trio to lend their name to a scruffy, sweet indie comedy instead.

Green Day gets a producer and a “story by” credit on “Nimrods,” which hints at both the movie’s main flaw and its saving grace. As a movie, it’s a pretty familiar and only fitfully entertaining road movie of the sort audiences have seen many, many times before. But the band’s raucous DIY spirit comes through loud and clear from time to time.

While Billie Joe Armstrong, Tre Cool and Mike Dirnt do make appearances in the film, the focus is really on another punk rock trio. The Analog Dogs are a teenage garage band in Kansas City struggling to get anybody to notice them.

Lead singer Tommy (Mason Thames of “The Black Phone”) is a class-cutting rebel with a sensitive side, while guitarist Fred (Kylr Coffman) is a goofball with tinted green hair (presumably an homage to Armstrong’s old coif). Rounding out the band is drummer Chad (Ryan Froust) a rules-following nerd who is upbraided by his bandmates for showing up punctually to band practice.

Director Lee Kirk (“The Giant Mechanical Man”) has a lot of affection for these young characters, and the film’s scrappy charm gets it farther than expected. Not all the way there, but farther.

The Analog Dogs meet Green Day at a record-store signing (the film beautifully captures the awkwardness of such forced celebrity encounters), and Tommy hands them a demo tape of their only recorded song. The next day, Tommy gets a call supposedly from Tre Cool, raving about the song and asking the Dogs to open for them at their New Year’s Eve show in Los Angeles, just a week away.

Only it’s not Tre Cool, but Tommy’s older brother Wayne (Keen Ruffalo), playing a prank. But Tommy is a true believer, and convinces the other Dogs to head to L.A. (by “borrowing” Wayne’s car, a retired taxicab) to play the gig.

With Green Day tunes thrashing away on the soundtrack, “Nimrods” follows the trio as they head cross-country from one barely-connected escapade to another. They get menaced by a creepy motel owner (Fred Armisen), play a battle-of-the-bands contest at a roadhouse, and have lots and lots of car trouble. Some of these sequences work, some kind of drag.

Director Lee Kirk (“The Giant Mechanical Man”) has a lot of affection for these young characters, and the film’s scrappy charm gets it farther than expected. Not all the way there, but farther.

The best scene in the movie is a complete detour from the Green Day quest. Tommy sparks with a young woman (McKenna Grace) he meets at a gas station, and agrees to meet at her party. The party is in a junkyard, with dozens of teens dancing in the mud during a rainstorm as unknown rock bands play their hearts out on stage.

The trio will end up seeing Green Day at a sold-out show at the end of the film. But it’s this concert scene – with everyone soaked, filthy, and grinning from ear to ear – that captures the punk rock nirvana that the movie has been going for.

“Nimrods” opens Friday in theaters. In Madison, it will play at AMC Fitchburg.