Title: Rock the Kasbah
MPAA Rating: R
Director: Barry Levinson
Starring: Bill Murray, Leem Lubany, Zooey Deschanel
Runtime: 1 hr 46 mins

What It Is: Disgraced rock manager Richie Lanz (Murray) has a talent in Ronnie (Deschanel) that somehow gets dragged into a tour for the USO in Afghanistan. When Ronnie leaves and takes all of Richie belongings with him he’s stuck in Afghanistan with nothing. He somehow has to get out of this jam and get back home. Before that though he’ll discover perhaps his greatest signing ever in the most unlikely of places. Richie will do anything to keep her. Even if it kills him…which it might.

What We Think: I didn’t hate this as much as it seems everyone else does. Sure it seems to be directionless but Murray charms the hell out of the audience here. When it comes to the ability to keep the train on the track Levinson fails, miserably. There are whole segments of the film that just get dropped. This does little to help the whole thing make sense. Zooey Deschanel is wasted but as I mentioned earlier Murray does a great job here. This thing would fall apart without his charming personality.

Our Grade: D+, I liked it more than most but it is still by no means a good film. Murray’s charm doesn’t exactly wear thin but it can only carry so much weight. This one here is a really disappointing. It has a soundtrack that surpasses the film by a long shot. There’s so much wasted talent here that I just ended up finding it all very sad. So many times I really wanted this to work. This seems to be another in a series of missteps for the once great Levinson. Something like The Humbling was also very bland and not well directed but all you have to do is read the review to see that. It’s been almost twenty years since his last good films Wag the Dog. It might be time to hang them up