[rating=2.00]
Bill Murray is at that stage where it doesn’t matter what choices he makes as an actor. His eminence is such that his mere presence in a film is enough to draw an audience, and his artistic acclaim all but assures a remarkable performance. For the most part, Murray wields his power with wisdom, choosing to forego what fans want and expect from him in order to take part in projects that are both meaningful and valid. Which is why his participation in Rock the Kasbah absolutely baffles me.
Rock the Kasbah finds Murray as a washed-up never-was band manager, Richie Lanz, who’s been reduced to conning wannabe singers out of money in exchange for representation he has no intention of actually giving. Searching for one last shot at the big time, he takes his one worthwhile client Ronnie (Zoey Deschanel) to Afghanistan for a USO tour. Ronnie, unable to take the danger of the wartime climate, flees the country, leaving Richie penniless, passportless, and clientless. While searching for a way to get home, he discovers Salima (Leem Lubany), a Pashtun girl with the voice of an angel. Recognizing this as his last opportunity for greatness, Richie pulls all the strings he can to get Salima a spot on Afgani American Idol counterpart Afghan Star.
What could have been—should have been—a wonderful opportunity to have Murray display his chops, both comedic and dramatic, quickly descends into a thick quagmire of bad direction and missed opportunities. Murray, for his part, mostly pleases with that trademarked Murray charm, but not even he can save Rock the Kasbah from its subpar script from Mitch Glazer and uninspired direction from Barry Levinson.
Levinson—who, let’s face it, hasn’t made a decent movie since Wag the Dog back in 1997—seems to be putting in the absolute most minimal of efforts with Rock the Kasbah. Gone is the artistry that once made him an inspiring, visionary director. Now, shots are framed and performances are guided, but only just. The movie feels pieced together with little thought given to meaning or subtext. Images are simply presented, and nothing more. This results in a movie that feels as artistically inspired as a subpar late-90’s teen comedy.
As far as the screenplay goes, mess only scratches the surface. It wouldn’t be fair to call it racist, but it does seem to play into the stereotypes many hold about the culture and people of Afghanistan. The majority of the Afghani characters exist merely as plot points and props for the white characters to play with. There’s the kindly cab-driver obsessed with disco, there’s the stern village chief, there’s the warlord, there’s the quiet hotel manager. All the Afghani characters exist as by-the-numbers tropes. As problematic as this is, it would be more so if every character wasn’t a one note cut-out. In a larger sense, every actor who isn’t Bill Murray exists merely as something for Bill Murray to interact with.
Which is a shame because there are some decent characters here. Scott Caan and Danny McBride nearly steal the show with their all-too-brief screen time as Jake and Nick, two hapless American douche-bros who inexplicably find themselves selling weapons to rival village chiefs. I would’ve loved to see more of these two—hell, I’d watch an entire movie about these two—but they disappear shortly after their introduction and exist only as a device to move the film into act two. Bruce Willis does a decent job as mercenary Bombay Brian, but he’s never fleshed out to any meaningful degree and often behaves in contrary ways—one minute, he’s threatening to kill Richie unless he gives him $1000 for saving his client, the next he’s his bodyguard. The same goes for Kate Hudson, who uses her status as the local whore to help Richie get Salima onto Afghan Star, which the film tells me makes sense, but I’m not convinced.
In fact, nothing about Rock the Kasbah makes too terribly much sense, which I suppose could be seen as a mirror for Richie’s lost-stranger theme. Maybe the intent was to make the audience feel as lost as Richie? That’s a nice thought, but I’m not sure Glazer or Levinson are capable of this kind of nuance; even if they were, the execution is so terrible that it ruins whatever point they might say they were trying to make.
No, the cold hard truth is that Rock the Kasbah is a bad movie, and no amount of justification can fix this. Its existence is too inexplicable, its plot too pointless, and its characters too trite for any of this to make sense otherwise. Murray may be beyond giving a damn about what his fans want and expect of him, but he really should expect more of himself.
Rock the Kasbah is now playing in theaters everywhere.
