Roadie (5/10)

January 26th, 2012

‘Two, TWO; check one two, two TWO’. Consider, if you will, the humble roadie. Always on the road, often on stage – running bent over, thinking that they can’t be seen – but loved by no one except the last leftover groupie. They hang about with musicians but aren’t ones. (A bit like drummers, really.) Jimmy’s just been fired after 20 years on the road with Blue Oyster Cult. Now what’s he gonna do?

Go back and see his mother, that’s what. He hasn’t seen her or his old New York neighbourhood in years. It hasn’t changed much. Same old neighbourhood, same old life. Even his bedroom hasn’t changed, with posters of rock gods on the walls and vinyl albums taking up a lot of floor space. Welcome home, Jimmy.

Whilst running an errand for his feeble mother, Jimmy (Ron Eldard) nips into the local bar for a quick snifter, and who should happen to be there but old high-school rival Bobby (Bobby Cannavale). They haven’t seen each other in years, but Bobby wastes no time in ribbing the wandering minstrel, just like the old days. In high school, childish insults only feed the insecurities of a young man: twenty years on, they just piss the same man off. The coup de grace? Bobby’s married to Jimmy’s old sweetheart Nikki, and there she is, in the bar’s back room, singing away and looking as hot as ever.

And that, in a nutshell, is what Roadie’s all about. Jimmy doesn’t have to be a member of a band’s support team, let alone Blue Oyster Cult’s, he just needed to have been away for a long time. The point writers/directors Michael and Gerald Cuesta are trying to make concerns how little things change. People get older, but intrinsically the same. I lived abroad for a number of years, and when I came home again I experienced the same sense – I’d changed, why hadn’t the people I used to know? Some of them thought they needed a passport just to get out of my home town.

The movie’s second theme comes in the conflict between the three ex high-schoolers. It’s clear that Jimmy is attracted to Nikki (Jill Hennessy) – so clear, in fact, that a stoned Bobby suggests they sleep together – and the tension comes to a head at a drug-enhanced party designed to recreate the old days. Considering these old days weren’t perhaps their finest hours together, it was a spectacularly bad idea, one destined to fail. People don’t change. It probably doesn’t help that Jimmy’s brought back some tall tales with him, too, embellishments designed to give some importance to his life-choices. No longer a roadie (and a sacked one at that), he claims to be BOC’s manager, producer and occasional song-writer too.

With music more as a background than anything else – Eldard has a lovely scene, reminiscing to a Robin Trower song - Roadie caught me unawares. I wasn’t expecting a character-driven piece about New York neighbourhoods and, I suppose, a story of growing up and putting the past behind you. Obviously shot with a small budget, the movie has its problems. As Jimmy, Eldard is unconvincing (although, considering his other acting work, it might be fair to assume he was only doing as directed), the pacing is slow, and the movie’s resolution less than clear-cut. Still, one must always make allowances for budget – but that good grace only goes so far. Presented by Magnolia Pictures, whose track record is stunning, this is a minor film by comparison to others from their stable. It makes its points quietly.