Anvil! The Story of Anvil
The rockumentary returns, with good results.
Directed by Sacha Gervasi
B
It’s generally understood that the inspiration for Spinal Tap was the band Status Quo. But looking at the doc Anvil! The Story of Anvil—about a longtime well-respected Canadian metal band—it’s impossible not to see the subjects as the fake band’s real-life analog. The similarities are eerie: Anvil had their 15 minutes of fame just as This Is Spinal Tap was being released; the doc ends with wild success in Japan; it makes a pit-stop at Stonehenge; and it features an amp that actually does go to 11. And is the drummer seriously named Robb Reiner?
True, Tap is the sad reality for most bands that trod on through never-ending valleys, metal or no, and the first couple reels of Sacha Gervasi’s documentary play like the latest giggling, uncomfortably humiliating doc on delusional losers. Reiner and singer-guitarist Steve “Lips” Kudlow remain the sole original members of the band, though they still have to retain soul-sucking day jobs. But Ludlow, who turns 50 at the doc’s outset, still talks about hitting the big time, even in a genre whose fanbase has become—to borrow a phrase from Tap manager Ian Faith—“more selective.”
Into their lives comes an Icelandic metalhead who agrees to be their well-meaning but incompetent manager on a whirlwind tour of Europe, with various nightmares that only stress the Tap connection further. It’s here that Anvil! could take the low road and milk the band’s misadventures for yuks. Happily, Gervasi goes the other way, lending a shoulder to a band that needs it. He’s rewarded: The band’s fortunes soon take a turn for the better.
As a documentary, Anvil! is too chopped up and hovers a little too close to PR. Yet it still addresses most (but not all) of the hard questions. Chief among those is the definition of success, and whether one can call a band a failure if it’s stayed afloat for nearly 30 years, all the while playing for appreciative fans. And it has a fascinating, complex character in Ludlow, who starts out as the nicest person on earth—he actually makes the phrase “It could never be worse than it already is” somehow sound optimistic—and gradually reveals a welter of alarming pathologies. Anvil! is technically feel-good, but it’s also terrifyingly real.
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