Rock the Kasbah

It's always sad to see a comedian floundering with the material he's been given.  It's especially sad when the comedian is a great one like Bill Murray.  Rock the Kasbah is an instantly forgettable yarn that features Murray throwing himself into a project that gives him little in return.  He's energetic, and he even gets the occasional chuckle.  But we don't go to see Murray for chuckles, we go for laughs.  This is a movie that should have been a sharp satire, but ends up being pretty thin stuff all around.

At least Murray seems to be in his element in the early scenes of the film, playing a scheming and down on his luck music manager named Richie Lanz.  Richie used to be a big name in the music industry.  He talks about the old days of hanging out with the great artists, and especially likes to bring up how he discovered Madonna ("back when she was just Donna") singing outside of a hamburger joint for spare change.  Now he lives and works out of a fleabag California motel, and his only client is a cover artist (Zooey Deschanel) who plays tiny clubs.  Murray has always excelled at characters who were a little unscrupulous or use sarcasm in every day conversations, and the character of Richie seems like a perfect fit.  Heck, judging by the dialogue, it sounds like the character was written with him in mind.  It probably was, given that the film's screenwriter is Mitch Glazer, a long-time friend of Murray's.

Desperate for money, Richie manages to get his client booked performing for military soldiers in Afghanistan.  She seems to be against the idea from the start, and shortly after they arrive, his client runs off with his money and abandons him there with no way to get back to the U.S.  As Richie struggles to get a new passport (which his client also took) and find a way to get home, he happens to find another musical discovery - a young Afghan woman with a beautiful singing voice and a passion for Cat Stevens music (Leem Lubani).  But it's against her peoples' tradition for her to perform.  Against all odds, Richie gets her a shot on a singing TV competition called Afghan Star.  He also finds time to romance a call girl named Merci (Kate Hudson), who has soldiers and warlords lined up outside her door for a chance to spend some time with her. 

Rock the Kasbah never really takes shape.  It's kind of formless, and never creates a compelling narrative.  We're simply watching Bill Murray wandering around Afghanistan, throwing out one-liners.  If the jokes he was telling were funny, this approach might have worked.  He's obviously trying his hardest.  But the movie that surrounds his performance needs structure in order for this to work.  The film never finds a satirical target, whether it be the music industry of the war effort.  It kind of lazily tosses these subjects into its screenplay, and hopes Murray can make some kind of comedy out of it.  The film's director is Barry Levinson, who is no stranger to war satire, having made the biting dark comedy Wag the Dog back in 1997.  That film hit hard, and knew exactly who it was taking aim at.  This film is so aimless, it's the cinematic equivalent of dough that hasn't even been molded into any shape or form yet.

As Bill Murray wanders about, trying to hold our attention, some other actors come and go from the narrative, seemingly at will.  Bruce Willis turns up as a square-jawed mercenary who helps Richie's client escape Afghanistan, and Danny McBride appears as an arms-dealer, but neither actor manages to make the slightest impression.  And when the movie finally does start to focus on something other than Murray (namely Leem Lubani as the talented young singer), it doesn't give her anything to do, and mainly keeps her standing in the background except when it is time for her to sing.  It would be nice if there were more scenes with Murray and her interacting.  They could maybe create some comedy together with their culture clash or something.  But the movie constantly misses this opportunity.  It also never bothers to answer some basic questions.  Questions like, why did Deschanel's character take his passport?  And who thought it would be a good idea to give Bill Murray's character a cute little daughter, who looks like she's only about eight?  Not only does Murray look too old to have a girl so young, but she's completely unnecessary to the film.

Rock the Kasbah seems to know that its main strength is with Murray, and he really does try to hold this movie up the best he can.  But it's not enough.  Outside of him, and a catchy soundtrack made up of music from the 60s to the 90s, there's very little that is worth paying much attention to.  Much like the lead character, who seems lost and confused for a good duration of the story, the filmmakers seemed to be lost on just how to breathe life into this thing.

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