By Simon Thompson
Writing/directing duo Juuso Laatio and Jukka Vidgren’s comedy Heavier Trip is an enjoyable sequel to their 2018 effort Heavy Trip. Given the task of describing Laatio and Vidgren’s comedic sensibilities, I would call the movie a mixture between This Is Spinal Tap, Bill and Ted,Metalocalypse, Wayne’s World, and The Pink Panther. Like Spinal Tap and Metalocalypse it’s a loving satire of the heavy metal scene, with the jokes working because Laatio and Vidgren clearly have a deep knowledge of what they are sending up, a factor which is a key ingredient for any satire to work.
The plot of Heavier Trip picks up from where the first movie left off, with the main characters, a band named Impaled Rektum, finding themselves in jail due to their actions at the end of the original. When the father of the band’s guitarist Lotvonen (Samuli Jaskio) falls ill putting his family farm in jeopardy, the band decide to escape jail so that they can perform at the Wacken open air festival and use the 50,000 euro fee offered by a shady record executive named Fisto (Anatole Taubman) to save the family business. Putting a spanner in the works is an incredibly motivated prison guard (Helen Vikstvedt) desperate to not let them get away with their escape.
The chemistry between the main characters in this movie is superb, with both the friendship that the characters have with one another and also the dynamics within the band itself coming across as being absolutely believable. Although the acting is to a very high standard across the board, I would like to give special praise to Johannes Holopainen in his performance as the band’s lead singer Turo, with Holopainen’s deadpan comic charm being a joy to watch.
Laatio’s and Vidgren’s quick camerawork is perfect for The Pink Panther like broad slapstick orientated comedy, and compliments both the rapidly paced editing by Kimmo Taavila as well as the screwball comedy style delivery by the cast. While the movie isn’t a mockumentary, cinematographer Anssi Leino uses a naturalistic style of shooting which, when juxtaposed with some of the more surreal scenes and plot elements, helps to land many of the script’s best jokes.
The only flaw, I would say that Heavier Trip suffers from is that unless you’re into, or have some understanding of, heavy metal music then many of the in-jokes as well as pisstakes of various metal sub-genres such as black metal and kawaii metal (with Baby Metal themselves even making a cameo) then a lot of the jokes will go over your head.
If you’re looking for a good slacker comedy and long for the days of late 80s – mid 1990s classics in that particular sub-genre, Heavier Trip might just be the movie for you. While I don’t think it’s a future classic in the vein of This Is Spinal Tap, Heavier Trip is still a likeable and extremely well made comedy that offers plenty of laughs.
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