Paul Rudd is not just America's funny man and sexiest man alive for a year anymore. As of his role in the new film Power Ballad, Rudd impressively struts his stuff as both a convincing serious actor and a more than decent singer, at least by wedding band standards. There he is on the big screen, as Rick Power, an American living in Ireland, fronting the wedding circuit band called Bride and Groove, belting out the likes of “The Boys are Back in Town” and “Summer of ’69” for dance-feverish wedding parties.
But, like many a working musician, he harbors bigger dreams of stardom and hit-making, which he got a taste of years earlier, before the business of family rearing interrupted his show biz ascent. A new possible avenue to music industry success and global ears comes through a chance meeting with a reforming boy band star, played and sung by an actual Jonas brother, Nick. That's where the plot thickens and the music industry morality play begins.
And that's where we recognize the music movie touch and obsession of Irish writer-director and formerly frustrated musician himself, John Carney. Almost famously, Carney created an indie film sensation nearly 20 years ago with his low budget/high box office charmer Once, about a singer-songwriter-busker, and went on to plow similar music-related storyline fields with Begin Again — with Mark Ruffalo and Keira Knightley — and Sing Street, in 2016. Between then and now, he has been busy working on TV’s Modern Love, but the director — himself a musician before turning to cinema, and co-writer of the film's signature song, “How to Write a Song Without You,” returns to his old flame of a subject, and scores.