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

If only the first hour of this film was as good as its final twenty minutes. I felt there was a better movie in here somewhere that never really emerged, as the film got mired in awkward and flat humor, plus some plot elements that just didn't ring true.

Billie Joe Armstrong (the lead vocalist for Green Day) stars here as Perry, a former punk rocker who left the band some years before to start a family. Now he's quite a scatterbrained but decent guy going through a midlife crisis. He's having trouble, as he's ready to celebrate his 40th birthday, accepting living in his "ordinary world", as a husband and father of two, and mired in a job with his brother in a family owned hardware store. Thus, the film will follow Perry for one day,as he ends up spontaneously arranging a birthday party at a very fancy hotel, in NYC.

Overall, the movie, written and directed by Lee Kirk, just took way too long to get unraveled, but at least the final parts of the film prevented it from being a complete clunker, in my opinion.

This movie was as expected, it wasn't great but wasn't bad. It was a simple and light hearted movie about a guy going through a mid life crisis and ended as you'd expect. It's a decent enough watch.

Billie armstrong (green day) is perry, a rocker in a band. Or.. was.. a rocker. Now, he's a house dad. Who forgets to put out the trash. And keeps telling his buds to put coasters under their beer. Fred armisen. Cameo by joan jett. He has to come to terms with being an ordinary, everyday dad, after being a top level star, where everyone did things for him. He keeps letting his family down by missing appointments. It feels like we're supposed to feel sorry for him. But every one of us wanted to be a high flying rock and roll star, living the high life, of fame and fortune. So we just don't feel sorry for him. It's over. Get your life together and be a good dad. Written and directed by lee kirk. It's okay. I like the fact that they had an actual rock n roller in the lead role.... gives it some authenticity.