Music Video Review: Green Day – ‘Bang Bang’

The ¡Uno!, ¡Dos!, ¡Tré! trilogy may have been lacklustre, but the band managed to make up for it with the accompanying music videos. Videos such as ‘Kill The DJ’, ‘Nuclear Family’ and ‘Oh Love’ are the most memorable examples, taking a similar thematic elements in relation to their videos for previous records.

It’s the same here, but instead of trying to create something a little further away from the band’s chaotic and anarchic aesthetic, they thrive in it with ‘Bang Bang’. Billie Joe Armstrong, Mike Dirnt and Tre Cool bask in the combination of both a classic Green day video (ala ‘Holiday’ or ‘Longview’), and a song that sounds like an amalgamation of American Idiot, Dookie and Nimrod.

Directed by Rancid’s frontman Tim Armstrong, the video follows a trio of masked robbers conspicuously hiding their identity with rubber masks that depicit exaggerated versions of Armstrong, Dirnt and Cool. All the while, the actual Green Day are performing ‘Bang Bang’ at a house party. The masked trio manage to escape the bank in enough time to unmask and make a getaway, revealing that they are not the band and are in fact three teenagers. The video inter-cuts between the band performing and the heist in action, eventually meeting as one when the trio arrive at the house party and precede to shower the band in the stolen money they acquired.

I’m loving the recent trend of band’s using films as core inspirations for their music videos. It’s been a while since it’s been blatantly clear in the medium; Red Hot Chili Peppers incorporating Saturday Night Fever and A Clockwork Orange into their recent video for ‘Go Robot’, here it’s Point Break and Heat.

Green Day’s sudden return was a pleasant hit to the gut, with the increasingly awesome single debuts and music videos being a well needed added bonus for fans of the band. Here’s hoping that a video for ‘Revolution Radio’ will come around soon.
Watch the video for ‘Bang Bang’ below.