'Power Ballad' Review: Nick Jonas Outshines Paul Rudd in Just Fine Music Comedy

After four music-related dramas — including 2007’s beloved Oscar-winning Once — we can now conclude that it is impossible for Irish director John Carney to make a bad film. However, as we learn in his latest, the comedy-drama Power Ballad, it is possible for him to make a film that skirts dangerously close to being a disappointment. The emotional components that added such dimension to his previous films, those rich wells of feeling delivered in warm and safe packages, are nudged aside by moments of near farce that are simply not in Carney’s wheelhouse. As a result, the story — about a middle-aged wedding singer whose song is stolen and turned into a hit by a former boy-band star — soft-pedals some of its darker and knottier themes in favor of something a bit too crowd-pleasing for its own good.

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