When everyone is silent at the end of a movie that isn't emotional, poignant or powerful cinema, it's never a good sign. You could hear a pin drop after Rock The Kasbah. Actually, you could hear a pin drop throughout for not a laugh or a chuckle could be heard during the alleged comedy.
When talented people make terrible films you would often assume money is the main motivator, and hey, everyone has to eat, but Rock The Kasbah was made on a relatively modest budget – modest in Hollywood terms and when you take into account its starry cast - of $15 million. It still hasn't broken even in the box office, only approaching the $3m mark in terms of global box office receipts. I pity the few people that actually spent money on going to see this.
The film centres on Richie Lanz (Murray), a has-been of the rock world who claims to have discovered Madonna and been the tour manager for Fleetwood Mac, and is now earning money by making false promises to wannabe popstars, fleecing them for their savings.
It should be the kind of character Murray could make endearing but there is nothing likeable about this guy whatsoever and his lines, which I'm sure are supposed to be full of rock humour and dry wit, are just severely cringe worthy. There's one particular scene where he sings Smoke On The Water for a group of Pashtun men and it was incredibly awkward to watch and went on for far too long - much like the entire film.
Richie takes one of his aspiring singers Ronnie (Deschanel) on a tour to Afghanistan to perform for the American soldiers based there and of course, things go awry as soon as they land. All is not lost however when Richie discovers a local girl with an amazing voice and gets her on to the biggest talent show in the country, but the fact that she's a girl means she can't sing on TV so it becomes this whole thing.
Along the way he comes into contact with a soldier-turned-mercenary type (Willis) and two gun-selling drug-taking Americans (McBride and Caan) who I can only assume feature to try to increase the film's 'random' factor, but really bring it to new realms of awful. Shia LaBeouf was originally on to play Caan's character – a good career move to turn it down, but I have to say I would've loved to watch him watch himself in this during his recent #AllMyMovies broadcast. It may have reduced him to tears.
Bruce Willis plays a parody of his action man persona and this, too, falls flat. The lack of humour makes me wonder if he's actually supposed to be a parody at all or if he's a serious character. If it's the latter, things are even worse than I first thought.
There's too much to criticise so I won't even get started on the stereotypical portrayal of the Afghan people, Kate Hudson's phoned-in portrayal of the hooker with heart, Deschanel's extremely irritating Ronnie, the random side-note with Richie's kid, that hammy ending or the fact that nothing makes sense, and not in a good way. Oh, wait...
On paper it could be an off-beat feel-good Sunday afternoon comedy but in reality it's just awful stuff and I would rather watch paint dry, or even an omnibus edition of The X Factor, nay, The Voice. Yes, it's that bad. The biggest shock in a film that utilised every stereotype and cliché in the book is that The Clash's Rock The Kasbah doesn't feature. It could only have improved things.
Sinead Brennan
