Mojo - The Music Magazine

Leicester Square was awash with Hollywood royalty last night as this year’s Times BFI London Film Festival played host to Woody Allen’s Penelope Cruz-led Vicky Cristina Barcelona, but MOJO, awaiting the start of the evening’s second premiere, was in no mood for romantic comedy. How could we be when making their way down the red carpet were future screen stars Robb Reiner, Steve ‘Lips’ Kudlow and tonight’s MC – one Keanu Reeves. Pray silence. Welcome to the full-throttle universe of ‘80s metal legends Anvil.

Sacha Gervasi, the director of Anvil! The Story Of Anvil, first met his teenage heroes when he escaped the grasp of his parents and spent a summer on the road with them in the early ‘80s. The band, founded in Toronto on Reiner’s whiplashing drum licks and Kudlow’s proto-thrash guitar fury, had by then released their second album, Metal On Metal – a record that would quickly become the blueprint for the parade of rock gods that would soon leap over into mainstream success – Metallica, Guns N’ Roses, Anthrax, Slayer and Megadeth to name but a few. In fact, Gervasi’s movie begins with Lars Ulrich, Slash, Scott Ian and Tom Araya extolling the virtues of Anvil’s early albums. Footage of a ‘80s bondage-clad Lips playing his guitar with a dildo coupled with a run through the band’s largely unnoticed back catalogue reminds us that almost 30 years have passed since Reiner and Kudlow enjoyed even a modicum of success. What happened to this most influential of bands? Where are they now? The answer is simple: exactly where they were before.

Gervasi’s consistently moving, often hilarious documentary is a human story centered on the lifelong friendship between Anvil’s two main players – the relentlessly gun-ho Lips and the bemused Reiner. Now in their 50s, the pair’s wide-eyed enthusiasm remains undimmed, their commitment to the band utterly infectious, their brotherly comradeship as strong as ever. Both are instantly likeable and within minutes you too pledge an allegiance to the Anvil cause. Their hair may be thinning, their faces sagging, but that irrepressible fire, usually tainted by age, bitterness and remorse, burns bright for all to see. For metalheads the music should provide a satisfactory Proustian rush of nostalgia, but this is not the story of the songs. Like Dig! and Some Kind Of Monster, it is a tale of the people and their desires. Yet, unlike those films, Anvil! Is happily bereft of truly unlikeable characters. We glimpse the odd irate European club owner and soul-sapping record exec, but the band, their families and their fans are all, like us, willing these two on all the way. This Is Spinal Tap comparisons (incidentally Anvil’s favourite movie) have been rife and Reiner and Kudlow are funny-as-hell throughout – witness a trip around the former’s home gallery or a visit to the local deli – but it is their determination and spirit, embedded at the bottom of a thousand heavy riffs, that makes Gervasi’s movie such an unexpected treat.

Back in the confines of the Odeon West End, the credits roll and Anvil jump onstage to perform their self-styled National Anthem of Heavy Metal, Metal On Metal. Looking genuinely moved by the roar from a crowd that includes, quite puzzlingly Gordon Brown’s wife Sarah, the band prepare for a short Q&A. “When are you going to play London?” asks a punter. “When somebody fucking hires us!” replies a chuckling Lips. The Anvil saga, it seems, continues unabated.

For more, head over to the movie's official site HERE.