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Aug 20, 2014 By Austin Trunick Web Exclusive

Michael Fassbender gives one of his most fun performances in this black comedy—all with his face covered.

In Frank, Jon (Domhnall Gleeson) dreams of being a musician, but he lacks the inspiration to pen a single song he feels is worthwhile. His fortune changes when he signs on as the new keyboardist for Soronprfbs, an experimental group led by the mono-moniker Frank, an iconoclast who keeps his identity obscured by an oversized, papier mache head.

As a rock and roll movie, Frank falls short; the film only needed one or two worthy tunes to sell us on Frank’s musical genius, but gives us a bunch of aimless, noisy noodling instead. Its portrayal of an experimental indie band—somewhere between Arcade Fire and Captain Beefheart—feels shallow. (They’re hardly any weirder than some of the bands we regularly cover in these pages.) But the performances are great, and the script contains its fair share of dark humor and shocking laughs. Frank shines most brightly in its pitch-black moments.

www.magpictures.com/frank

Author rating: 7/10