THE WHYTE PYTHON WORLD TOUR

In 1986, a heavy metal drummer is recruited by the CIA to help topple the Eastern Bloc with the power of rock.

This weird, wry caper is built from bits and pieces of lore from both rock ’n’ roll and the Cold War, not least the persistent rumor that the Scorpions hit “Wind of Change” was secretly written by the CIA. Richard Henderson may be an amiable, unemployable loser during LA’s waking hours, but as Rikki Thunder, he’s channeling his inner John Bonham in a dead-end band going nowhere during the golden age of hair bands. His fortunes change when he meets Tawny Spice, a miniskirt-bedecked vision whose own alter ego is Amanda Price, an undercover CIA agent freshly assigned as a punishment to the agency’s secretive Project Facemelt. The agency’s scheme is to insert Rikki into one of the country’s fastest-rising glam-pop bands and send them on a youth-corrupting tour of the Soviet republics, complete with a pro-democracy anthem, “Tonight, for Tomorrow.” One minor assault later, Rikki is the new drummer in Whyte Python and brothers in arms with the group’s diva-esque lead singer, Davy Bones; closeted and spectral axeman, Buck Sweet; and pleasant-but-dumb bassist, Spencer Dooley. “It’s my understanding that they rock,” says Amanda’s uptight boss, Deputy Director Ed Lonsa, checking his notes. “Yes, they rock hard.” It helps that the other players are even more outlandish—for example, there’s Officer Boone, who kind of digs writing the lyrics, among other suspects in an agency mole hunt. Meanwhile, an East German general plans to cut the Whyte Python world tour short permanently in Berlin. Packed with cameos from heroes of glam metal like Steven Tyler and Bret Michaels, musical montages and lyrics, and a juvenile humor that winks at, rather than worships its subjects, this offbeat gem does for metal dudes what Daisy Jones & the Six does for the yacht-rock crowd.

A nostalgic, headbanging comedy about rock ’n’ roll refugees.