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When he was young, Sacha Gervasi was a roadie for the metal band Anvil. He would later go on to write Stephen Spielberg’s THE TERMINAL. Now he returns to Anvil for this rock documentary that is like THIS IS SPINAL TAP meets AMERICAN MOVIE.

Steve “Lips” Kudlow and Robb Reiner have been playing metal together since they were 14 years old. Now in their 50s, they’re still at it, trying to recapture the 15 minutes of fame they had in the 1980s. The doc begins with rock stars like Guns ‘n Roses’ Slash and Metallica’s Lars Ulrich explaining how influential the band was; fortune just didn’t shine on them. In between shows at bars, Lips works as a truck driver at the Children’s Choice Catering, while Reiner works in construction.

Gervasi knows how ridiculous it is to see 50-year-old men going out to crowds of a handful of people at dive bars singing the same kind of music they did when they were teens. Some scenes are exactly like ones in the other Rob Reiner’s SPINAL TAP. At one point we see a clip from an ’80s Canadian talk show where an appalled host reads the lyrics to one of their songs and you think it could have been on the album, “Smell the Glove.” Their latest guitarist Ivan Hurd has a European girlfriend named Tiziana who turns into their manager. She sets up a European tour where they start out at a festival where all the other bands don’t remember them and it gets worse from there. If it weren’t real, one might not believe it. At one point the end up at the real Stonehenge.

But Gervasi doesn’t set out to make fools of them; he makes you feel for them. They’ve been doing this a long time. On camera their wives come off very supportive, but you hear stories of tensions over the years. Reiner’s sister is less kind. Lips’ siblings are all successful and they care about their rebellious younger brother trying to help him when they can.

At core of the story is the nearly lifelong friendship between Lips and Reiner. Lips is the eternal optimist while Reiner is at least a skeptic. They are inseparable, even if at times they seem like they’re going to kill each other. As the leader of the band, Lips is the one the other band members rely on to bring them to the Promised Land. He feels the weight of their financial difficulties as a result of being in the band where it’s not too uncommon to be paid less than expected or not at all. For Lips his only plan is to keep on rockin’. At least Reiner has other artistic forms of expression. He paints like a depressed Edward Hopper — cityscapes with no people. And you’ll be in awe of his subject matter in his one multi medium piece. No wonder his wife made him hang it behind the door leading to the basement.

At one point Lips contacts Grammy-nominee Chris Tsangarides, the producer of their most successful album, to see if he’d be interested in working with them again. By this point we want these guys to succeed and fear another crushing rejection. Sometimes when life closes a door, it opens a window you can’t quite fit through. So you have to improvise.

If I had seen this film before the end of 2009, it would have been in my top ten of the year. The men of Anvil are artists in the truest sense of what it’s like to be an artist. They work everyday jobs so they can afford to “go on vacation” and be in a metal band. Lips tries a phone sales job and lasts about a day. He’s too nice to sell sunglasses to people who don’t want them. It is totally counter to his metal persona where he was known for playing slide guitar riffs with a dildo. The old adage is true — you can’t judge a book by its cover. These aging metalheads are nothing like you’d think.

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