Rock the Kasbah

Rock the Kasbah - starring Bill Murray & Kate Hudson.  Murray stars as Richie Lanz, a washed up talent agent/huckster who decides to take his sole remaining talented act (Ronnie, played by Zooey Deschanel) to Afghanistan to rock a middle east USO tour.  On their first night in Afghanistan, Ronnie has second thoughts and splits the country along with all of Richie's money and his passport.  Richie is thus left trapped in a dangerous land with very few options.  He agrees to help some rogue American arms dealers (played by Scott Caan & Danny McBride) in exchange for a lot of cash and an expedited passport.  While trying to negotiate an arms deal he finds himself in a Pashtun village where he discovers an incredibly talented Pashtun girl singing in a cave.  At that point, Richie feels like he had found his new purpose in life and sets out to help this girl win the very popular "Afghan Star" talent show (a sort of "American Idol" in Afghanistan).  All in all, it was rather disappointing.  I'm just not quite sure what kind of movie they were setting out to make, it wasn't really a comedy, it wasn't a war movie, it wasn't an action movie, it wasn't a drama, it's just very hard to categorize, perhaps comedy/drama fits the bill, although it was light on both.  Murray, who I've been a huge fan of for years, seemed to sleepwalk through his performance.  Kate Hudson seemed to be trying to reprise her Penny Lane performance in the far superior "Almost Famous".  Bruce Willis seems to be becoming a caricature of himself.  A bit more of Zooey Deschanel may have helped but she departed early.  Overall, very disappointing, I had high hopes for another great Bill Murray comedy, and this was far from that.

I will give it 2 out of 5 stars (*****).


TPSG Movie Rating System:

5 stars (*****) = Tremendous film, see it pronto! 
4 stars (*****) = Good movie, worthy of a trip to the movie theater. 
3 stars (*****) = Not bad, worthy of a Netflix watch, save yourself a trip to the theater though.
2 stars (*****) = The effort was there but it doesn't click, don't waste your time.

1 star  (*****) = Avoid at all costs, this one is a real stinker.