Power Ballad Strikes All the Right Chords

Power Ballad

★ ★ ★ ★

Power Ballad stars Paul Rudd as Rick Power, a husband and father living out his musical dreams as the lead singer in a wedding band. He once had a record deal with his rock band before he went on tour to Ireland, met the love of his life, married Rachel (Marcella Plunkett), had a daughter named Aja (Beth Fallon) and took a year off to focus on family. When he returned to Los Angeles a year later, the label had dropped him.

Now, years later in Ireland, he makes a living playing weddings with a band called The Bride and Groove. Rick’s the only American among a band of Irishmen. He’s content with his family but still fantasizes about playing large venues with tens of thousands of fans. He has his eye out for any opportunity to resurrect his music career.

Paul Rudd as Rick Power
© 2026 Lionsgate

Danny Wilson (Nick Jonas), a former singer in a famous boy band, is childhood friends with the groom at a wedding Rick is playing. The bride and groom ask Rick if Danny can come on stage to sing with the band. It goes so well that Rick and Danny later smoke a couple of joints, have several beers, polish off a bottle of Irish whiskey and work on songs together.

What happens next is a showbiz cautionary tale. Rick plays a ballad for Danny, who helps with the lyrics. They have a great jam session and part ways, with Danny telling Rick to look him up when he’s in Los Angeles.

Nick Jonas as Danny Wilson singing the song
© 2026 Lionsgate

Danny is struggling to show his record label and manager Mac (Jack Reynor) anything that will separate him from his boy band past. Of course, Danny uses Rick’s song. We all know where this is heading.

It’s not an original concept, but the film has some wonderfully surprising tricks up its sleeve. There are lovely, tender moments where the characters disappoint us, then surprise us.

Marcella Plunkett as Rachel, Beth Fallon as Aja and Paul Rudd as Rick Power
© 2026 Lionsgate

The characters feel like real people, and what happens to them in the story feels raw and visceral. The comedy flows naturally through dialogue and situations that feel relatable. The drama is woven through the story so flawlessly that we feel bad for these characters when they’re struggling and celebrate with them when things go well.

What the film does especially well is make Danny relatable. Technically speaking, he’s the antagonist, but it’s much more complicated than that. There are layers to why he did what he did. Where most movies like this would try to make us hate him, this film takes him in another direction, and it makes for fantastic cinema.

Havana Rose Liu as Marcia
© 2026 Lionsgate

Rudd plays Rick with just enough desperation to make him funny without turning him into a punchline, while Jonas gives Danny the kind of wounded charm that keeps him from fully becoming the villain the plot seems to promise.

From the writing and directing to the music and acting, this film is much more than a performance at a wedding. Power Ballad is, in every way, the main event.