Unlike roguecritic4 on IMDB “I couldn’t have had a better Friday night out”, I can’t be so kind to “Rock the Kasbah”. Sure Bill Murray was my go-to crush back in the late ’70’s SNL and Lost in Translation is still one of my top five movies of all time AND Bruce Willis was my man crush in the 80’s Monnlighting, but the screen writing/editing/don’t know where things went wrong aspect of Rock the Kasbah can not be denied.
Items needed: more character development emotion or stick to the farce. What began as a Middle eastern spoof movie with Zooey Deschanel ended with no explanation to her exit other than she left the tour. Perhaps that was a euphemism for ‘quit the movie’. Slowly we progress to the ‘heart’ of the movie, a Pashtun singer with the only perfect English in her village, who also happens to have a tv in her cave. Wait, how does the girl get good tv reception in a desert cave when I can’t get good antennae reception in Brighton, New York?
I’ve spent too much time already on this pitiful flick. In conclusion, Murray and Willis must have been instructed to not show any of their natural charm and humor. And finally, I am shamed as an educator for going to see an uneven movie about a Middle Eastern American Idol type hero, when at the theater adjoining mine was a documentary about a real hero of education: I Am Malala. May my confession be duly noted.
