Ordinary World

Ordinary World stars Billie Joe Armstrong as a middle-aged divorced father approaching his 40th birthday and yearning for his early days as a punk rocker. It wasn't just the premise that drew me to this movie. It was also the fact that it was being played out by an actor whose day job is a punk rocker. And not just any punk rocker. Billie Joe Armstrong is the lead singer of the famous punk rock trio Green Day, which formed back in 1986 and broke into the music scene in 1994 with the album Dookie. I've been a Green Day fan since they put out "Good Riddance (Time of Your Life)", and I've grown up listening to Dookie, American Idiot, and 21st Century Breakdown, which are some of my favorite albums ever. This year, Green Day has put out an album titled Revolution Radio, and it includes a track called "Ordinary World", which this movie not only features on the soundtrack, but also got named after. While "Ordinary World" is the best track off of Revolution Radio, this movie isn't quite on the same par as that song of the same name. It is a pretty solid movie, though. It's a nice, meaningful middle-aged story that comes from director Lee Kirk, but fits Billie Joe's perspective quite well. And although the story doesn't have a clear mission that our main character goes on, it's easy to understand what it's aiming for. Also, while Billie Joe Armstrong doesn't have a lot of acting experience, he does give a quite convincing performance. Putting into consideration the time he went to rehab during the band's 2012 trio release era that was as unstable and disastrous as the ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, and ¡Tré! albums themselves, you can understand his character's thinking and feeling, and it definitely relates to his own life. It may not be a perfect film (not that it was trying to be one), but Ordinary World is a pleasantly harmless movie that serves as a good side-project from a famous punk rocker.

Score: 68/100

Recommendation: Any fans of Green Day

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

Not the best story but Billie Joe Armstrong did a decent job with his first staring role.

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.

I expected that Billie Joe Armstrong will be bad in this movie, I was wrong. He was good. He can act, not Oscar worthy, but he can act. This movie has many flaws, some major plot point are not explained at the end of the movie, it's bothering me a little bit All the acting was fine, everyone did their jobs well The soundtrack was awesome Predictable as hell Overall, OK movie. You can watch it as a Green Day fan and you will be pleased by Billie acting skills. I enjoy it, not sure I'll watch again or not but hey check it out, it's worth your time