Much of that credit, though, is given to his strong supporting actors, especially an eager Fred Armisen who sparks Perry’s party to spiral out of control. Yet for all his failings as a leading man, Armstrong isn’t embarrassing in the role. His actions rarely come across as naturalistic, as the task of acting is apparently always on his mind.
Ordinary world movie series#
And yet the character’s stupidity isn’t even mined for the slightest comedic effect, instead just a series of selfish actions that are simply excused because he’s in the throes of a mid-life crisis.īillie Joe Armstrong isn’t a particularly strong actor. It’d be one thing if bad luck intervenes and were distract the character, but he unconsciously goes through this one day in an oblivious stupor that is so unrelenting it makes empathy something no rational person would extend to this individual. Within minutes of the film’s brief 90-minute running time, we’re witness to the character accepting and forgetting tasks with increasingly regularity. Trying to recapture the rebellion of his youth leaves Perry in a situation where he’s facing consequences for his dereliction of responsibility.Īs much as Kirk wants you to extend a level of sympathy towards Perry, his screenplay makes it pretty much impossible to care for such a selfish, irreconcilably stupid character. Meanwhile, Perry runs into an old flame at the hotel ( Judy Greer), who is the manager for punk icon Joan Jett (who has a very brief cameo). In his absence, the party at the hotel has started gaining steam, his friends ordering room service and raiding the minibar. As his friends, including former bandmate Gary (Armisen), arrive, the duties that Perry has forgotten about come calling, rushing to let his in-laws ( John Doman and Mia Dillon) and picking up the guitar he left at work. Sensing this, Jake gives his brother $1,000 and the day off, which Perry uses to book an expensive hotel room and throw himself a birthday party. Late to his job at the family hardware story where he works with his brother Jake ( Chris Messina), Perry is feeling a crushing listlessness about his current life, often drifting off in his mind to the past triumphs. Before departing for work, Karen provides Perry with a laundry list of things to do, including picking up a guitar for Salome ( Madisyn Shipman) for her talent show and unlocking the house on his lunch break for his incoming in-laws. One thing, however, he hasn’t forgotten is the fact that today is his birthday, a fact that seems to have been lost his wife Karen ( Selma Blair). Perry is quite forgetful, as we’ll see further and further as Ordinary World continues. When we next see Perry, he’s awaking from his slumber only to realize that he’s forgotten to put out the trash. When we first see Perry (Armstrong) he’s alongside his drunken bandmates – including Fred Armisen and Kevin Corrigan – before playing a show in 1995. As hard as the film tries to present an earnest examination of this life coping with transition, it’s entirely undone by having a lead character that is so astoundingly stupid and selfish that empathy is elusive for the audience. That’s the theme at the center of Ordinary World, the new film from writer-director Lee Kirk, which stars Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day as a husband and father trying to cope with life after his glory days of playing in dingy dive bars with his drunken cohorts. Perry recklessly rents an expensive hotel room, hoping friends will join him there for a party that will bring back his punk-rock mojo.Everyone hates getting older, but for those that have aligned themselves with anti-conformist subculture of punk rock entering into a world of marriage, children, and a career can be a challenging transition. Here the script, by Lee Kirk, who also directed, could have gone a lot of amusing places, but instead it settles for familiar tropes. Perry is not entirely comfortable with his bland life, especially given that he is turning 40 and everyone seems to have forgotten his birthday. In the old days he was a trash-the-hotel-room renegade now his angst involves forgetting that it’s trash day.
Now, though, he’s a man-child with a wife (Selma Blair), a couple of kids and a drab job working for his brother (Chris Messina) at a hardware store. Armstrong plays Perry, whose band was popular in CBGB-like clubs for a hot minute in the 1990s. Billie Joe Armstrong of Green Day is usually pretty appealing when he dabbles in acting, and he’s appealing again in “Ordinary World.” But after a promising start the script lets him down, and the film turns into a predictable midlife-crisis yarn.
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