BILL IS A STRUGGLING MUSICIAN in Brooklyn. He has a wife, a daughter, and a day job at a nuclear plant, but by night, Bill (Nils d'Aulaire) dons a red helmet and space suit, playing his banjo for disinterested patrons at the local dive bar. The twist to his performance is that Bill pretends he's a visitor from the planet Hondo, sent here to destroy Planet Earth and all its inhabitants—but before he had the chance to pull the trigger on his doomsday device, he fell deeply in love with humans, and, more importantly, their music.

One day a guy, Kevin (Jay Klaitz), in a matching helmet and spacesuit appears, sent from Hondo to assassinate Bill for failing to carry out his mission. It turns out that Bill isn't making any of this shit up—he's indeed an alien, and now this other Hondonian is after him.

It should probably be noted that d'Aulaire and Klaitz are Future Folk, an actual, New York-based acoustic duo that pretends they're visitors from Hondo. The History of Future Folk is the attempt to turn their gimmick into a full-length movie. It's a decent idea for a sketch that's pulled beyond its breaking point.

The first 20 minutes or so of The History of Future Folk are actually pretty damn delightful. The film's highlight is the scene in which Bill plays human music for Kevin, who, at first terrified, erupts into ecstatic, delighted hysterics. The idea of extraterrestrials falling in rapturous love with Earth's music is Future Folk's sweetest and funniest idea.

Once the two team up, however, Future Folk spins its wheels for another hour. It wants to be more sci-fi adventure than breezy musical comedy, so we're treated to a convoluted and uninteresting plot about saving the Earth from Hondo's destructive forces. You won't care about any of it, and Future Folk's miniscule budget can't make it the least bit convincing.