Synopsis – A down-on-his-luck music manager discovers a teenage girl with an extraordinary voice while on a music tour in Afghanistan and takes her to Kabul to compete on the popular television show, Afghan Star.

My Take – Wow, this film really took a while to release here in the U.A.E, I am guessing it was due to its disastrous performance at the U.S box office when it released there back in October 2015. And for people who do decide to watch this film, let me clear this – Bruce Willis is not the lead here (the misleading marketing seems to persist on that), Bill Murray is! Willis appears in about 3-4 scenes in total. And also this is not a laugh out comedy about an American in Afghanistan. Instead its a dark take on the opposing cultural norms between the East and the West. An exemplary concept, no doubt, especially in todays time. On paper, this concept works as a dark comedy with Bill Murray. Playing his usual fish-out-of- water character like we’ve seen numerous times before, and it works because he’s Bill Murray. Meant to be a personality-driven, director Barry Levinson‘s film tried to take on more than it can chew. It has great jokes and fun moments but they are far too distant from one another to be effective in the movie. What’s worse is that they try to use comedy to send a message, and it fails miserably, to the point of embarrassment of how an American film just mismanaged someone else’s culture. Inspired by a true story of young female singer in Afghanistan, the story follows Richie Lanz (Bill Murray), a washed-up Southern California music promoter, overflowing with stories of his relationships with famous rock musicians, but short on recent success. In desperation to please his only secretary/ only client cover singer Ronnie Smiler (Zooey Deschanel), he books her a gig in at the USO tour of American military bases in Afghanistan. Fearing for her life the moment they land in Kabul, Ronnie escapes with Richie’s money and passport.

With no cash, no identification and a two-week wait for the U.S. Embassy to get him a new passport, Richie ends up meeting a bunch of colourful characters like the popular local American-born prostitute, Merci (Kate Hudson), the mercenary Bombay Brian (Bruce Willis) and arm dealers Nick (Danny McBride) & Jake (Scott Cann). Richie also gets some much-needed transportation services, street knowledge, cultural education and translation services (not to mention friendship and good advice) from a kind, young Disco-loving local cab driver named Riza (Arian Moayed). In order to fast track his passport process & to earn some quick cash Richie agrees to make a delivery for Nick & Jake to a  local tribal chief Tariq Khan (Fahim Fazli).  Late at night, while outside taking care of some personal business, Richie hears the beautiful voice of Tariq’s daughter Salima (Leem Lubany) singing in the distance. Enchanted by her voice and delighted by the opportunity to manage her, Richie uses all his charm and skills to make Salima the first woman to appear on the very popular reality TV show “Afghan Star”, which is the local equivalent of “American Idol”.  These outrages people all over, as woman in the countries culture are not permitted to sing in the public. Even though by helping Salima, Richie has endangered his life, he is ready to go any distance to make Salima’s dream to come true. The film does start off well, with classic Bill Murray tropes in places. Even though most of the scenes seem like fillers for the upcoming second half, the characters on screen manage to keep you hooked on. The funniest scene would be, when Richie starts singing the 1972 rock song Smoke on the Water, in front of a confused Afghan tribe. The film starts to drag on the moment it dives into the geo-politics of Afghan society, where women are forbidden to sing and dance. Thereby hitting a break to the humour in favour of pushing down messages about liberty down our throats. Most importantly, throughout its run time of 106 minutes, it felt like two unfinished films were plasters together to somehow find a way to work. The set up seems ready to go, but director Barry Levinson (Rain Man, Good Morning Vietnam) never establishes an idea of what kind of film this wants to be. It wants to be a satire on music business, but dwells into dark terrorist War drama, while juggling with a coming to acceptance philosophy and fish out of water jokes. There is no moral to the story, other than just placing Richie from one difficult situation to the next, and using his charm to get out of this situation. The film is supposed to show the struggles with religion, apartheid, culture, and what is acceptable within people’s beliefs. It’s a dangerous subject to have as a comedy-drama, and here it just doesn’t work, despite the best efforts from the cast, and having such a prolific director at the helm, it should have been a safe bet. Not to mention, the environment the movie has us in is in a gloomy, depressing world that would have been fine had it been a drama, but as a comedy, it brings it down even more. And whats with the bunch of recognizable actors/actresses having underdeveloped parts?

There’s definitely some of that smarmy, irreverent humor that made Murray famous in the early 1980s, but not as much as you might think based on the trailers. The film is an entertaining mix of Murray-esque comedic situations, war-time satire, social commentary and old Cat Stevens / Yusuf Islam songs. The main characters are generally likable, while the situations are only pseudo-realistic, but the film is often charming and amusing, if not laugh-out-loud funny. The main problem with the film is that the script, directing and performances soft pedal both the comedy and the drama in an attempt to have it both ways. I’ve always been a fan of Bill Murray ever since I can remember. Since I haven’t seen too many of his films this current millennium, so as soon as I heard about this one, I had to see it. So this is exactly what you would expect, Bill Murray spewing one-liner after one-liner as he has often done in films. The problem was that this time, I didn’t think it worked because I did not find any of it to be funny. I guess the big draw about this film was supposed to be just Bill Murray being Bill Murray in Afghanistan. I guess the comedy in this one was supposed to be the contrast between his sleazy, Hollywood-type with the Middle East. I also found it odd that his character had a young daughter considering how old Murray is. Despite not finding any of it funny, I still thought Bill Murray way okay at depicting this. Leem Lubany plays her part well. Despite all the commotion in the background, her character seemed the most relatable. Her scenes were the most exciting to me as I was interested in the cultural issues and I thought Salima was actually a good singer which made it entertaining. Kate Hudson as the sexy seductress seemed apt in her role. Arian Moayed is likable. Bruce Willis, Danny McBride, Scott Caan, Taylor Kinney and Zooey Deschanel appear in small underwritten parts. With such a talent aboard and an idea that could raise plenty of questions about the war, and American influence on the Middle East,the film should have been more interesting and way funnier, but ends up being a disappointment despite the presence of good actors. On the whole, ‘Rock the Kasbah’ has its moments, but misfires the moment it jumps into geo politics. It’s no surprise that the filmed bombed so hard when released, it’s not aimed at a specific demographic (it may have got in some hardcore Murray fans), has a strange Three Kings feel to it, and the final scene of the film is more of a whimper than anything else, because the subject matter is nothing new, we see these people’s struggles everyday on the news and in the media, we don’t need a comedy about it.

Directed – Barry Levinson