While 2006’s Air Guitar Nation was a documentary focusing on the competitors on their way to the US Air Guitar Championships, Adventures of Power follows a goofy air drummer whose father couldn’t afford to buy him the real deal. Power is a man-boy, trapped in a small mining town, laughed at for his overflowing passion for flailing his arms to the beat of the drum. One day a flyer for an air drum competition in Mexico literally smacks him in the face, and he bikes 40 miles to compete.

There, he runs into Carlos, an air guitar guru, who singles him out for his boldness to attempt Rush’s “Tom Sawyer” – standing up. Carlos suggests Power travel to Newark, N.J. to study with him and compete in a national air drumming competition in New York City. The naïve dreamer decides to go for it: He hitchhikes cross country, ends up crashing at a Chinese food restaurant and falling in love with the deaf (she really is, although Power’s hometown friend explains that means “hot” to the rest of the gang) girl upstairs.

Starring writer-director Ari Gold as Power and Adrian Grenier as his nemesis Dallas H., Adventures of Power is ridiculous in a Dodgeball sort of way, and charmingly funny, too. Michael McKean makes a surprise cameo as Power’s dad, and Jane Lynch, as his aunt, is wonderfully silly. Even Rush’s Neil Peart pops up in the mix.

Adventures of Power works so well because Gold is that likeable loser who is following his dreams. His success counts as a win for everybody else.

Based part in reality, Gold is actually in one band, the Honey Brothers, with Grenier and another with his twin brother, Ethan, called Gold Brothers, and does play the drums as well as ukulele and piano. Although one of the underlying messages of the film is that air drumming should not be laughed at, you can’t help but wonder if Gold is, indeed, laughing.

“I don’t need drums,” Power proclaims in the film. “I am drums.”

Grade: B+



Adventures of Power releases in select theaters Oct. 16.