Rock The Kasbah
Director: Barry Levinson
Talent: Bill Murray, Leem Lubany, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson
Release Date: 18th March 2016
Bill Murray is Richie Lanz, a washed up talent manager who finds himself stuck in war-torn Afghanistan without any money or a passport. A casual encounter with friendly but unscrupulous American arms dealers leads to an opportunity couriering bullets to a remote Pashtun village, wherein he encounters a young woman with a miraculous singing voice and dreams of competing on Afghan Star, her country’s equivalent of American Idol. Lanz feels bound to help her realise her ambition in the face of societal prejudice and her father’s prohibition, perhaps resurrecting his own ailing career along the way.
In every respect, Rock The Kasbah is as phoned-in a film as it’s possible to make. Going beyond its flagrantly objectionable, imperialist premise, it is, simply, lazily written and apparently somewhat cobbled together as a narrative in the editing booth. The storyline manages the rare feat of being both incoherent and lacking all complexity, while otherwise decent comedic actors chew on dialogue that sounds like Madeleine Albright wrote it.
Words: Oisín Murphy-Hall
