Entertainment
Patrick Stewart's Extremely R-Rated Thriller Is A Punk Rock Battle Against Nazis
By Robert Scucci
| Updated
Having spent the entirety of my late teens and 20s playing music at dive bars with local bands, I went into 2015’s Green Room totally blind, not even knowing what it was about. In my experience, green rooms are simply a place for the talent to hang out and eat stale chips, have a drink, and keep their gear safe while mingling after their set. Green Room shows its namesake in a much more brutal fashion, as the titular hangout happens to be the site of a murder that a band walks in on, resulting in the club owner holding them hostage while he figures out what to do with them.
An incredibly violent horror thriller in all the best ways, Green Room is fast-paced and brutal, drenched in feedback and shotgun blasts, and best of all, features a cold, calculating, and menacing Patrick Stewart as the resident bad guy who wants total control of the situation. Add a killer punk rock soundtrack and some good old-fashioned Wolfenstein-level Nazi beatdowns into the mix, and that’s really all you need to be sold on Green Room.
Picard Goes Hard in Green Room
Green Room centers on Pat (Anton Yelchin), Sam (Alia Shawkat), Reece (Joe Cole), and Tiger (Callum Turner), who are on tour with their band, The Ain’t Rights. After a last-minute cancellation on their self-funded Pacific Northwest tour, they book a replacement show at a skinhead-owned Portland bar run by Darcy Banker (Patrick Stewart). The club itself is a front for a drug operation, posing as a punk venue to keep the authorities at bay.
After playing their set, The Ain’t Rights head back to the green room, not knowing they’re about to walk in on a dead body. During the show, Emily (Taylor Tunes) was stabbed to death by Werm (Brent Werzner), a member of the venue’s house band, Cowcatcher. Pat makes the fatal mistake of calling the police, which sets off a chain reaction of events that results in The Ain’t Rights being held hostage by Gabe (Macon Blair) and Big Justin (Eric Edelstein), the bartenders who are clearly the muscle of the operation.
The skinheads tip off Darcy, their leader, who decides it’s in everybody’s best interest to kill Pat, Sam, Reece, and Tiger so there are no material witnesses to the murder that happened on his property. What Darcy isn’t prepared for is the band fighting back.
An Intense Escape Operation
Armed with whatever objects they can use as weapons, a fire extinguisher being the most obvious example, the band decides to make a break for it. Unfortunately, they don’t have the same kind of firepower as the members of Cowcatcher or the rest of the bar’s employees. They’re locked down inside a Nazi compound and severely outnumbered. Amber (Imogen Poots), Emily’s friend who is also trying to leave the skinhead group without being killed, helps them orchestrate an escape, knowing full well that there will be casualties along the way.
Darcy knows that everything he’s built will be compromised if The Ain’t Rights get out alive. His plan to stage a breaking and entering gone wrong is the most reasonable solution he can come up with. Patrick Stewart shines here as a menacing antagonist who never raises his voice, but clearly has more bite than bark. While Darcy has succeeded with schemes like this in the past in the name of self-preservation, he’s finally met his match after underestimating the people he’s trying to silence.
Green Room is an intense watch, but it’s absolutely worth your time if you want to see a band that thrives on chaos bite off more than it can chew. Whether they’ll need to make lineup changes by the end is something I’ll let you discover on your own, but go into this knowing that everybody involved is taking a beating at some point. If you’re ready to rock while taking out a Nazi or two, then Green Room, currently streaming on Netflix, should be next on your watchlist.