I am a fan of rock and rock music and have seen a lot of bands at a lot of different venues where I live in Central Florida.  When I see a new film with a central plott that revolves around music, I’m always intrigued. Music can be an inspirational topic to use as a way to tell dramatic or comedic stories. Band on the Run is a mix of both. It’s a dramedy if you will. There are a lot of funny moments, but the dramatic aspects outway the comedic moments. One of the main subplots is one that is very relatable to me.

Jessie (Matt Perl) is an ad-man who lives in Detroit with his overbearing, cranky, handicapped father, Thomas (Larry Bagby), and his mother, who has to deal with his father. Working as an ad-man isn’t his passion, though. It’s playing drums for his three man garage band Hot Freaks with his band mates Max (Daniel Blair) and Cody (Dylan Randazzo). Their aspiration is playing at the South X Southwest Music festival and getting discovered by a record label executive. This is harder said than done for the trio. 

I have written about my relationship with my father in the past. I didn’t have a good relationship with him as a kid, and that had led to me not liking him much as an adult either. He wasn’t a very good father to me and my brothers and sister or a husband to my mother when I was young. He was an alcoholic who abused us all. I’m later years he wanted to be my best friend. Not he’s on his deathbed, and I don’t know what to think about this. The father in this film reminded me quite a bit of my father.  He doesn’t take responsibility for his actions, and he treats his wife and son. Bagby plays this character as quite abrasive and very unlikable. That’s why he reminded me of my own father so much. I wasn’t a fan of this character at all. Which makes the performance by Bagby very effective.

I’m a big fan of road trip films. Movies like Little Miss Sunshine, Thelma & Louise, and The Wizard of Oz, even though this wasn’t on a traditional road we all think of, come to mind when I think of great road trip films. These types of movies can be therapeutic in nature. The act of riding in a car or, in the case of this film, a van can help solve problems or bring family and / or friends together. The road trip in this movie was filled with arguments and angst. This brought the band members and the drummer and his father together because of his sickness. I loved what the writer/director did with the road trip scenes in this film.

The aforementioned music in the movie is more of an afterthought to the main plot of getting to the music festival and the relationship between the drummer and his father.  I feel it was more of a softer rock and roll rather than metal or other subgenres of rock and roll. One of the supporting characters played by Randazzo wore a t-shirt that said Metal Sucks. I guess that’s the idea the director is going for. Metal Rock isn’t that good, and softer rock is the way to go. I tend to like all genres of rock and roll myself. This is just something I noticed about this story.

The director tries to take some artistic choices that I don’t think work so well. One of them is a couple of dream sequences.  These are to help the viewer see the future in a way. I don’t think these were necessary. The second thing I noticed that didn’t work so well was the scenes that had shallow depth of field. Shallow depth of field isn’t always the best way to go. With a small budget, this is the way to go sometimes. It just makes it easier to move forward with the overall story the film is trying to convey. As this filmmaker progresses, he’ll have better equipment to work with, which will solve this problem.

Band on the Run is a mixed bag. It has a relatable father son story I can get behind.  This was the best aspect of the movie for me. The road trip was the second best part of the film. The banter and back and forth between the three band members was fun to follow along with. The cast as a whole was good,  not great. Bagby and Perl were the best in the cast. Overall, this movie was fun to watch. The mixture of genres helped make it more fun than I’d anticipated.  Hopefully, people will seek this film out on vod when it’s available to watch at home.

3 ½ stars

Dan Skip Allen