Bill Murray is a hugely entertaining guy who can do pretty much
anything he wants. He can sing, dance a little, and if he needs to get dramatic
he's not so bad at that, either. One thing he can't do is save the terribly
outdated and unfunny Rock the
Kasbah, a film about awful Americans and the horrid things they do in the
Middle East. It's bad enough to offend audiences on multiple continents.
With direction by Barry Levinson one might
think it would have the same cultural smarts as his Good Morning Vietnam, and maybe
it would if Mitch Glazer wasn't the screenwriter. Glazer, a Murray confidante
who most notably worked with him on Scrooged,
must secretly hate his friend for putting him through this mess. Murray plays
down 'n out rock music manager Richie Lanz, a guy with an inflated ego and
sense of self (his favorite lie is that he discovered Madonna) whose practice
has hit the skids. He's working out of a rundown hotel and his only client is
the barely-talented Ronnie (Zooey Deschanel) who also works as his secretary.
The film is basically a bunch of random encounters with characters you won't
ever care about, and the plot kicks into gear when one such meeting leads to
Richie taking Ronnie to Afghanistan to work a USO tour.
Of course it's a disastrous idea; Kabul
turns out to be a complete war zone (shocker!!) which freaks out Ronnie. But
she's totally cool with the weirdo gun-toting mercenary (Bruce Willis) who
easily picks her up at the hotel lounge, and then whisks her away under the cover
of night. Richie barely seems to care that she's gone except that he no longer
has an act, no money, and no way home. That we never see her again is barely an
issue, but such is the lackadaisical treatment of all the relationships in this
film. Richie makes friends with a pair of loudmouth American gun dealers (Danny
McBride and Scott Caan) who set him up for a gun smuggling run. Why does he do
it? Who knows, and it doesn't really matter. Richie also becomes fast friends
with a local prostitute (Kate Hudson) looking to retire, but not until she
screws him so good that he makes her his partner-in-crime or something.
After a wildly inept and unfocused hour
what marginally resembles a plot emerges when Richie hears Salima (Leem
Lubany), a young Pashtun girl singing in a cave late one night. Women are
forbidden from singing in her culture and to be caught doing so could mean
death, but what the heck, it's a sign from God or something so Richie becomes
her manager in hopes of having her appear on Afghan Star, an American
Idol-style reality show. The film settles into a half-baked empowerment story
about women in the Middle East breaking free of the shackles placed upon them.
Maybe that would be a fine path for Glazer's story to take if he had started it
about 45 minutes earlier, but the vast majority of the film consists of Richie
bouncing around like a marble and getting into bizarre situations. While billed
as a comedy there are practically no laughs and the mood is surprisingly grim.
Are we supposed to find it funny when Richie's caravan gets bombed and everyone
nearly dies? Or how about when he gets shot in the middle of a firefight? Or
when Salima is threatened with death? Oh, what knee-slappers those moments
were.
Rock the Kasbah establishes no lasting emotional
connections between any of its characters. A scene between Richie and his
estranged daughter might as well not exist, except that it sets up a baffling
mid-credits sequence that will leave a bad taste in your mouth. By then you'll
be willing to eat a handful of desert sand than endure another minute.
The film is loosely based on a true story about the real Afghan Star show
and the women who literally risk their lives to get on the stage and sing. A
documentary was made about it and is far better than anything Rock the Kasbah has to offer.
Rating: 1.5 out of 5
