Does Bill Murray Rock the Kasbah or is it a bomb?
By Josh Lasser
There is something deeply entertaining about Bill Murray’s latest movie, the Barry Levinson-directed Rock the Kasbah. However, there is also something deeply unsettling about it.
Things start off well enough, with Murray’s character, Richie Lanz, a music manager with alleged past success taking one of his few remaining singers, Ronnie (Zooey Deschanel), on a USO tour of Afghanistan. There are promises of money, promises of a return to glory for Richie, promises of a brighter road ahead. It all comes crashing down though when Ronnie freaks out and bails, taking Richie’s money and passport with her.
Everything to that point, including a wonderfully funny opening scene with Richie auditioning a singer, and much of what follows is quite funny. Murray isn’t stretching himself, but is offering the sort of character audiences love to see him portray. He is down on his luck, rude, an outsider, and relatively convinced of his own greatness.
We want to hear it.
When Rock the Kasbah proceeds as the misadventures of Richie Lanz, it is a good, enjoyable, movie. Richie meets mercenaries, he meets arms dealers, he meets a hooker, he gets shot at in Kabul and all the while he’s just Bill Murray doing what Bill Murray does so well and has done so well for years. There is a sentimental underpinning as Richie has a daughter back home that he’s not regularly allowed to see, but it’s still mostly just small amusements that follow one after another.
As perhaps they must, things eventually take a turn. Richie finds himself in a Pashtun village where he meets a young woman, Salima (Leem Lubany), who can sing beautifully. Richie would love to put her on Afghan Star, a show similar to American Idol, but finds the villagers, and seemingly much of the country, are not interested in having a woman sing in public.
This is where Rock the Kasbah finds difficulties. It may not be a bright, happy comedy, but it is a comedy and Richie is going to fight the good fight and try to change the opinions of all of Afghanistan. Salima may want to sing, but it is Richie pulling the strings (and getting a percentage).
The message the movie seems to be putting out is that even the most washed-up slacker from the West can change the entirety of Afghanistan. As the philosophy goes, the people in the country want to change, but they need the West to push them into it.
Even ignoring the specific problems posed by the issue, the overall switch going from the amusing misadventures of Richie Lanz into a moralistic tale halfway through gives one pause. The change is abrupt and completely arrests the film’s forward momentum, offering a sharp left turn in its stead. There is no more mention of Ronnie. There is no further discussion of the USO tour. The U.S. army, which had been present in the background, disappears.
We want to hear it.
When this switch occurs we also lose several of the film’s interesting side characters beyond Ronnie, such as Army Private Barnes (Taylor Kinney) and weapons dealers Nick (Danny McBride) and Jake (Scott Caan). Richie’s misadventures revolve around him meeting these off-the-wall characters, most of whom are trying to make a buck during the war and his finding his way with, or against, them. Then, suddenly, they’re gone. Mercenary Bombay Brian (Bruce Willis) and hooker Merci (Kate Hudson) stick around, as does Richie’s driver, Daoud (Beejan Land), but losing the rest of the ancillary characters hurts Rock the Kasbah greatly.
There are still moments where Rock the Kasbah works following this change and they mainly flow from Lubany, not Murray. Lubany’s singing on Afghan Star is fantastic and may make the soundtrack worth purchasing all on its own. Certainly this is undercut within the film by Murray’s character pulling the strings and the film revolving around his decisions, not hers, but Lubany is still wonderful.
The abrupt shift in Rock the Kasbah and the film’s need to redeem its main character, particularly in such grand fashion, is a stumbling block which it simply cannot overcome. Watching the snarky, rude, over the hill rock manager muddle through life and just keep on chugging for 100 minutes may not make for the greatest character arc, but it could have stopped Rock the Kasbah from the questionable changes it undergoes. It still might have a chance after the shift in stories, but the movie never gives Lubany enough space to create as fully realized a character as it ought, and as the new tale requires.
