The opening aerial shot of "Green Room" soars over the wavy green mass of an Oregon cornfield, before finding a swath through it where a van has swerved off the highway. Inside the van, so shabby you can practically smell the stale beer and B.O., four members of a rough-living punk band, The Ain't Rights, slowly awake to find that their driver had fallen asleep at the wheel, a common hazard on the overnight slog from one gig to the next. Out of money and gas, the day's first task is trekking to the nearest mall's parking lot and siphoning somebody's tank.
Welcome to the glamour of DIY touring. "Green Room" director Jeremy Saulnier — of 2013 indie thriller "Blue Ruin" — spent his youth in the 1990s immersed in Washington, D.C.'s hard-core scene, and in this movie he gets the millieu right — from the Fugazi stickers and mosh-pit flailing to the politicized views of music and performance, and the complete lack of sexual tension between male and female members in the band.
Saulnier absolutely nails that uneasy feeling of pulling into some dodgy last-minute venue in the middle of nowhere, where all sorts of nutters wander to and fro wasted on any number of substances; not knowing where you're sleeping or whether you'll actually get paid, knowing only that your mates have your back, and if all goes well it will be a good set. For The Ain't Rights — played by Anton Yelchin, Callum Turner, Joe Cole and Alia Shawkat (of the excellent TBS series "Search Party") — it will not be a good night.