Anvil! The True Story of Anvil

Review

I was positive, then perplexed, then positive again about Sacha Gervasi’s Anvil! The Story of Anvil. A documentary? Ha-ha, no: It was ultrasubtle, maybe not funny enough, played with admirable sincerity, but a neo�Spinal Tap mockumentary nonetheless. I’d never heard of this supposedly pioneering Canadian heavy-metal group that made a small splash (largely among metalheads) in the early eighties, influenced Metallica and Slayer, and then slipped into obscurity. Surely Canada was the tip-off, along with album titles like Hard �N’ Heavy, Metal on Metal, and Forged in Fire�never mind that the lead singer is �Lips� Kudlow and his drummer �Robb Reiner� (nudge-nudge).

Reminiscing about how they met, they say that one of their first songs was called �Thumb Hang� and inspired by the Inquisition. They go on a European comeback tour, and the camera follows them into near-empty auditoriums and clubs. They visit Stonehenge. Recording their comeback thirteenth album (This Is Thirteen), Lips and Robb quarrel and make up, crying and clinging. (�You’re my fuckin’ brother, man.�) At EMI Canada, an exec welcomes Lips and Robb warmly (�You’ve been around a long time, and that has currency��a line too fabulous to be real), listens to about twenty seconds of their album, and abruptly shuts it off. The film ends on a brighter note when the Japanese go mad for them: No, no, no, it can’t be real.

Yes, yes, yes, it is, so apologies to Anvil, Gervasi, and Canada. The documentary is solid as � as � an anvil. And if you can forget Spinal Tap (hard), it’s also rather touching the way these 50-year-olds still have the forged-in-fire fortitude. Rock celebrity is the hardest of pipe dreams to achieve�and the most impossible, it seems, to let go of. — David Edelstein