"Heavy Trip" joins my list of movies about a specific genre of music that everyone can enjoy even if you don't know, or even hate, the genre. Other films include the Japanese "Swing Girls" (swing & old school jazz),the American indie "Patti Cake$" (rap) and of course the ones that started them all, the Christopher Guest music mockumentaries "A Mighty Wind" (folk) and "This Is Spinal Tap" (hard rock). How do these films work so well? It's because foremost they introduce funny, quirky, loveable losers whom we can all associate with, regardless of musical taste, cultural origin or language. When done right, the story of the artistic underdog is universal.

Here we are introduced to 4 of the loveable-est, loser-est underdogs who ever cranked their amps to 11. The main character "Turo" is a long-haired metalhead who can't seem to get on stage without vomiting like a possessed demon girl. He is joined by his bandmates "Pasi" a freakish bass genius who's 1 pocket protector short of Einstein, "Jynkky" a drummer who's so hardcore he keeps the beat even during heart failure, and the guitarist "Lotvonen" who draws inspiration from the sounds of reindeer carcasses being ground into hamburger.

(Quick note about reindeer mutilations and the sort. All animal action is hilariously fake, including one wrestling scene with a crazed wolverine that is quite obviously a stuffed prop. No animals were sacrificed, nor actual reindeer blood spilled, in the making of this film. I hope.)

What follows is a cute, quirky, quasi-surreal unfolding of events surrounding the efforts of their band "IMPALED REKTUM" to make it to a metal festival in Norway, including but not limited to, attacks by rival lounge singers, questionable cops, a few rocket launchers, sword wielding Vikings, and perhaps even death itself. Do they ever make it to the show? Tune in and find out.

This movie had me laughing hysterically the entire time. It plays on every single "metal head" stereotype and it does so successfully which is what makes it so funny. This movie will easily looked back on as a cult classic years from now.

Turo (Johannes Holopainen) and his buddies Lutvonen (Samuli Jaskio),Jynkky (Antti Heikkinen) and Pasi (Max Ouaska) have been friends since childhood in their remote Northern Finnish village, but they're all misfits; they bond over creating a heavy metal band in which they do great covers of other bands' songs and which never, ever plays before a live audience. You see, Turo has crippling stage fright, though he tries to hide it from his friends. He's also in love with Mila (Minka Kuustonen),but she's taken the eye of relatively successful lounge singer Jouni (Ville Tihonen) and Turo is just too shy to say a word. Until, that is, the opportunity arises for the band to play a heavy metal festival in Norway - if they can only get there in one piece....Here you've got a head-banging road trip comedy in which everything is against our heroes but still they strive to overcome. It's in equal parts deafeningly loud, hilariously funny and actively madcap with respect to the adventures these young men find themselves stumbling into. There's even a Spinal-Tappish scene that practically outdoes Spinal Tap, which is *really* saying something. Great noisy fun!