The Pick of Destiny is an offshoot of the Tenacious D phenomenon. It is probably fair to say that were it not for Jack Black’s rising star in recent years in films like The School of Rock (2003), King Kong (2005) and Nacho Libre (2006) that The Pick of Destiny would never have emerged as the mainstream release it is – Tenacious D’s popularity as a group hardly seems big enough to be command a major international release. On its own merit, The Pick of Destiny is a slight effort. It feels like a remake of This is Spinal Tap (1984) by way of a The Blues Brothers (1980) but recast with Cheech and Chong and with a dash or two of the surrealist stoner humour of Dude, Where’s My Car? (2000). Although it is hard to think that there is anything in The Pick of Destiny that would hold the cult potential of something like The Blues Brothers, which similarly grew out of a musical comedy act.

Much of the film’s humour is aimed at the Tenacious D cult and makes references to various band in-jokes and album tracks, which goes over the head of a casual viewer like this author. Elsewhere, Black and Gass make numerous jokes about farts, dope-smoking and sex, none of which ever seem particularly clever. The early scenes with the two living together are lame and fail to raise any kind of smile. Eventually, the film develops an amiably surreal sense of humour. There is a wacky drug-induced hallucination where Jack Black cavorts with and is adopted by a Sasquatch (played by John C. Reilly) and the two dance through a psychedelic landscape. Especially hilarious is the climactic scene where Black and Gass take on Satan, played by Dave Grohl of Nirvana and Foo Fighters fame, in a guitar-duel that seems to have been construed as a parody of the climactic showdown in Crossroads (1986). There are few sights guaranteed to leave one in a fit of giggles than that of a horned, red-skinned Satan playing electric guitar, performing microphone antics and gleefully gesticulating with a tube of lubricant at the threat of making Kyle Gass his bitch in Hell. There are various other cinematic quotes – in one scene, Jack Black goes to sleep on a park bench at Venice Beach and is beaten up by a group of Droogs that seem to have stepped out from Stanley Kubrick’s A Clockwork Orange (1971), while the climactic car chase has been modelled on the surrealistic excesses of The Blues Brothers.

Jack Black plays with effortless ease, Kyle Gass, who must be one of the ugliest leads one has ever seen in a film in some time, less so. Troy Gentile proves a scene-stealer as the young JB where his raging head-banger style is an amusing parody of Jack Black’s performing antics. The film also features a number of cameos from real-life rockers including Meat Loaf as the young Jack Black’s fundamentalist father; Ronnie James Dio who gives mystical guidance to the young JB from out of a poster; and the aforementioned Dave Grohl. There are also cameos from Tim Robbins as a homeless man and the film’s executive producer Ben Stiller as an amusingly intense aging rocker listed on the credits as Record Store Guy who recounts the story of the pick’s origins. The Pick of Destiny has its surreal amusements, although ultimately it is not a film pitched to multiplex mass audiences but one intended for a niche cult audience.