Power Ballad’s Tale of Artistic Theft Is Almost Too Much to Bear

The rest of Power Ballad focuses on how Rick tries to get his song back. There’s lots of humiliation and frustration involved, as well as an incident that endangers his family. It should all add up to the expected Carney magic—and yet somehow, it doesn’t. The performers aren’t to blame here; it’s the story that lets them down. As Danny, Jonas—with his butter-smooth stage moves and creamy crooning—is almost alarmingly appealing. You can see how he could instantly captivate not just adolescent girls, but their moms as well. (At one point, Danny reveals one of the keys to becoming a successful boy band: you’ve got to win over both the kids and the parents with your wholesomeness, because it’s the parents who hold the purse strings.) And Rudd, as the happy mid-lifer who can’t help wanting a little more, is appealing in that characteristically boyish, Rudd-like way, though there’s also something deeply wistful about him. Rick knows he should be completely happy with his cool, beautiful wife and nobody’s-fool daughter. (At one point, she informs her dad that old-school love songs no longer cut it with young women because they’re uninterested in falling in love. When he asks what they are interested in, she says, with the scalpel directness of a teenage girl, “Revenge.”)