‘Power Ballad’: Paul Rudd Excels In This Feel-Good Musical Comedy

Not to sound like Paul Rudd’s character Rick from this movie, but we don’t make enough movies like Power Ballad anymore. Although the adult-focused comedy with surprising sincerity hasn’t quite gone the way of the dodo yet, I firmly believe we need at least one movie like what John Carney’s done here each month of the year. 

Perhaps it’s the overall drought of movie-star-led comedy capers that had me enjoying Power Ballad so much, or maybe it’s simply a sincerely fun movie. Anchored by a heartfelt and regularly hilarious script that’s elevated even further by a great Paul Rudd performance, it’s a delightful film that’s not ashamed to be an outright crowd-pleaser. 

Rick Power (Rudd) is an American almost-rockstar who now plays in a wedding band across Ireland. At one of his gigs, he happens to perform alongside Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), an ex-boyband member who’s looking to make it big on his own terms, in a really delightful early scene. 

An impromptu jam session after the reception sees Rick and Danny exchanging ideas with great camaraderie. But six months later, he hears a familiar tune on the radio – his song that he shared with Danny, and it’s a number one hit. Rick tries to resolve the issue, leading to an initially justified crashout that gets out of control. 

A thoroughly funny musical comedy

Power Ballad plays as a monkey’s paw situation for semi-professional musicians who fantasise about making it big. What if everyone in the world was singing your song, but nobody knows it was you who wrote it? Rudd, who’s expectedly and appropriately charismatic throughout the film’s first half, takes on a more dour tone as he looks for some kind of resolution to this outright thievery. 

It’s a credit to the script by Carney and co-writer Peter McDonald that while the ‘antagonist’ of the film, Danny doesn’t feel outright villainous in the hands of Nick Jonas. Power Ballad is not exactly rife with commentary, but it does have things to say about the brutality of the music industry on the people in it.

Both are maligned, in a way – Rick forsook his chance to go big by staying with his family, while Danny’s label expects him to go hard to avoid fading into irrelevance. Their initial ability to relate with one another makes Danny’s inevitable betrayal sting that much more for both Rick and audience alike, even if it is the catalyst of some rather entertaining shenanigans. 

And Power Ballad is sincerely funny in an appropriately Irish manner. It’s home to some truly outstanding jokes in the script and delightful side characters like Peter McDonald as Rick’s dropkick bandmate Sandy, Marcella Plunkett as his wonderful wife Rachel or Beth Fallon as their sharp-tongued teenager Aja. 

Despite some drawbacks, Power Ballad sings

It makes for an eminently enjoyable film, though not without some drawbacks. This might be a matter of taste, but I found Rick’s original music in Power Ballad to sound mostly like pretty safe stadium rock music that feels more like Coldplay than anything from the late 80s/early 90s when he’s purported to have been in his musical prime.

You could also argue that the film has a little too much sympathy for Danny, too. Power Ballad practically flirts with class commentary in its middle section as it compares the singer’s expansive mega-mansion with the comfortable clutter of where Rick lives in Ireland, but the sensitivity written for and portrayed by Jonas feels a bit at odds with the actual thieving actions of his character. 

Alas, none of it significantly detracts from the entertainment factor that Power Ballad provides. Genuinely funny and warm, it rather appropriately feels like hearing a wedding band playing a song you love: it might not be new or innovative, but you don’t always want something new. And when that chord is struck just right, it feels good.

★★★½

Power Ballad is in cinemas May 28th.