After I saw “Anvil: The Story of Anvil,” I wanted to go out and buy one of their CDs. Not because I liked their music (I believe I recently referred to heavy metal as the special-ed class in the school of rock).

No, I wanted to buy one of their CDs because I felt so bad for them.

When I wasn’t laughing at them.

If “Anvil” were a fiction film, you’d say it was far-fetched (though it sort of echoes last year’s “The Rocker”).

If it were a mockumentary, it would be “This is Spinal Tap.”

But “Anvil” is something else. Because it’s non-fiction.

Which just goes to show that truth is always, always, always more amazing, more heart-wrenching, more fantastic than anyone’s imagination. The bitch-slap of destiny is a mother – and it’s applied full force to this heavy-metal band from Toronto.

The story this documentary tells will hook you immediately. Over footage of Anvil from an early ’80s metal fest in Tokyo, we get testimonials from such heavy-metal gods as Lemmy of Motorhead and Lars Ulrich of Metallica, talking about how Anvil was the band everyone wanted to be and everyone emulated – back in the day.

Cut to the grim reality of today. Anvil is still playing, thanks to the tenacity of original members Steve “Lips” Kudlow (the singer/guitarist) and drummer Robb Reiner, who have been friends since they were 14. But instead of arenas, they’re playing tiny clubs in suburban Toronto. And Lips supports his family by driving a catering truck for a company that delivers school lunches.

They cling to the dream: that they’ll one day be as big as their early years promised they’d be. It’s obvious to everyone but them that Anvil barely counts as a has-been band. Yet Kudlow and Reiner are convinced that their moment will come, if they just hang in there. They’re supported by their families, though Reiner’s sister essentially says to the camera at one point, “Gee, guys, maybe you should take a hint.”

At this point, their dream is like an expensive hobby. That hits home when one of the band’s newer members hooks up via the Internet with a hardcore Anvil fan in Europe (apparently one of dozens worldwide). She offers to manage them through a European tour, which she will put together. But the tour is a fiasco of missed trains, sleeping on airport floors and gigs at which they’re stiffed for their bread (at one point, Kudlow gets into a fistfight with a club owner who refuses to pay them because they got lost and were two hours late, though they did play a full show).

Convinced that they’ve never had a well-engineered CD that a record label really got behind, Kudlow sends a demo to Chris Tsangarides, the Brit who produced their first record. He agrees the material is good – then tells them it will cost them tens of thousands of pounds to come to England and record at his studio. Which they spend to make the trip and the CD – only to have major labels tell them, “Hmm, not really for us.”

The film chronicles one slow-motion disaster after another – but Kudlow and Reiner are convinced they can turn it around. They had that early taste of stardom; now in their 50s, they are positive that the longed-for success is just around the next corner – or the next.

It’s a fascinating study in that obsession that drives so many entertainers, who can’t believe no one appreciates the obvious gifts they possess. The world is wrong – and these guys just need that one opportunity to prove it and take what’s been denied to them for so long.

Their frustration is palpable. So is their enjoyment at entertaining a crowd. You don’t need to be a heavy-metal fan to be overwhelmed by the poignance – and amused by the cluelessness – of the arrested adolescents of Anvil, still grasping at youth in hopes of finally tasting a young man’s dream.

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