KEY POINTS:
Herald rating: * * *
Cast: David "C-Diddy" Jung, Zac Munro, Dan "Bjorn Turoque" Crane
Director: Alexandra Lipsitz
Running Time: 81 min
Rating: M
Screening: Rialto
Verdict: The air guitar exponents rock, but lacks a sense of fun from the film-makers
You shouldn't take the piss out of any art form because people pour their heart and soul into these passions. However, if there's an art worthy of at least a little tongue-in-cheek, it's air guitar.
While American documentary Air Guitar Nation is an intriguing insight into the obsessive, odd and highly competitive world of air guitaring you'd think that maybe, just maybe, the makers could have had more of a sense of humour when making it.
Thankfully, it's the hilarious cast of invisible axe players who provide the giggles with their outlandish fingerwork and their pathological obsession with being the best air guitarist in the world.
Air Guitar Nation follows the fortunes of US champion David "C-Diddy" Jung, a likeable chap with deft imaginary widdly-widdly skills, who is the first American to enter the World Air Guitar Championships held every year in Oulu, Finland.
The documentary is filmed at the 2003 champs and along the way we meet players like Krye Tuff ("He's so in control and so out of control"); former champ and air guitar God Zac Munro ("Comedy doesn't go down well. It's an art form in Finland"); and suave American Bjorn Turoque ("Make air, not war").
This bunch of freaks, from countries all around the world, including New Zealand, are experts at air guitar and at this level of competition they take things very seriously. Yes, they play air guitar because it's fun, but these guys and girls also want to be famous. For example, C-Diddy says: "This is not a competition, this is a celebration of my air greatness" and if he wins it will be his "Olympic moment".
These players are a bunch of lovable freaks and you really want Air Guitar Nation to exploit that, in a fun-loving and good-natured way, of course. But it doesn't.
Still, guys like Bjorn Turoque rock, and make it worth a watch.
