Rock the Kasbah

Baby it’s a wild film, but not Murray’s best and not Levinson’s either.

A slapdash, sporadically funny cross between the infamous “Ishtar’’ and the mercifully forgotten “American Dreamz.’’

This lame, laugh-starved script makes him look like an Old Man — not a funny old man or a Grumpy old man (see the fine “St. Vincent” for that). Just old and not really up to trying too hard.

The film often plays like everyone making it agreed that some on-set idea was so funny it had to be included, whether or not it suited the story.

Murray blusters and hams his way through the first two acts before turning all mushy in the third.

The air of mourning might have worked as a counterpoint to the silliness if Mitch Glazer’s script had smart gags, but as one-liner after one-liner misses its mark, you begin to feel sorry for Murray, who’s really too old to be playing a guy who has a little daughter (not granddaughter) and likes to get kinky with Kate Hudson as a raucous, Dolly Parton–style hooker-businesswoman.

No one doesn’t love Bill Murray, but his melancholy torpor can wear thin in the best of circumstances, and these circumstances are pretty close to the worst. The cast includes Bruce Willis, Kate Hudson, Danny McBride and Scott Caan. No one escapes unscathed.

It's basically just Bill Murray having a crazy time in Afghanistan. He runs into mercenaries, arms dealers, and a really sexy Kate Hudson. Along the way there are explosions, stolen passports, and other crazy hijinks before the movie settles on the core plot of Murray's "Richie" stumbling onto some real talent. The results are unfortunately rather uneven. As far as the comedy goes it's got some chuckles here and there and some one liners that may grant a little more of a reaction. Bill Murray is just as fantastic as ever, so that ensures at least a few laughs no matter how bad the material is. Not that it actually is bad, just sadly lackluster. While far from a laugh riot we at least get Murray's rendition of "Smoke On The Water" and some clever one liners. The rest of the cast is just as good. They just aren't given as much to do. We've got the likes of Bruce Willis and Danny McBride in more humorous, albeit limited supporting roles. It's not hard to notice though that a lot of these characters don't stick around for long. They'll show up for a gag or two and maybe move the plot along a little and then they're gone. It naturally leads to some muddled storytelling. Like I mentioned earlier in my review, a lot of crazy stuff happens before the movie starts to deliver the tale it wants to tell. When it does finally start telling it, the movie tries to offer up some commentary on Middle Eastern culture. It never quite manages to actually say anything and as a result there's nothing profound to be found here. While there are some amusing bits scattered throughout it's just not funny enough to be considered a good comedy. It's also not smart enough to be considered good satire. With characters regularly coming and going in the plot it's kind of hard to care about what's going on, especially when some departures make elements of the plot hard to follow. This is the Murray show. The actor is once again as likable as ever and elevates the material to something higher than it's worth. He manages to wring some laughs out of the dry material. Unfortunately he can't work miracles. All in all it's an ill-conceived movie. One that perhaps was trying to do something good, but was unable to do so thanks to the botched execution. Bill Murray is able to make it watchable, but unable to make it worth watching. 5.2/10

-Rock the Kasbah is a 2015 American comedy film directed by Barry Levinson and written by Mitch Glazer. The film stars Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, Leem Lubany, Scott Caan, Danny McBride, Kelly Lynch, Arian Moayed, Taylor Kinney, and Beejan Land. The film was released on October 23, 2015, by Open Road Films. --Box office: -According to Box Office Mojo, the film had the fifth-worst opening of all-time for a film playing in 2,000+ theaters, grossing an average $731 per venue (fellow opener Jem and the Holograms had an even worse $570 average). --Critical response: -Rock the Kasbah received negative reviews from critics. On Rotten Tomatoes, the film has a rating of 8%, based on 107 reviews, with an average rating of 3.4/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "The Shareef don't like Rock the Kasbah, and neither will viewers hoping for a film that manages to make effective use of Bill Murray's knack for playing lovably anarchic losers." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 29 out of 100, based on 33 critics, indicating "generally unfavorable reviews". On CinemaScore, audiences gave the film an average grade of "B–" on an A+ to F scale.

Ouch, that cast has got to hurt a voice after this movie. I'm so sorry for them. Not for any cause of this movie to exactly ask me the question of why it exist that's for sure.

This movie is so bad it hurts and I love Bill Murray. Rock the Kasbah has a pretty interesting concept but its just so flat and unfunny that it is pretty much unwatchable. Murray gives a decent performance but its certainly not going to do down as one of his best. Despite getting almost all the attention throughout the film Murray's character developed very little. He was essentially the same **** at the end of the film that he was at the first. Then you have Kate Hudson and Bruce Willis (I should've known it was bad if Willis was in it) and both their characters have fairly minimal roles that really just do not mean anything to the viewer. Finally the third act is atrocious. Rock the Kasbah is just such an intolerable mess that I really can't recommend it to anyone. Please just save yourself some misery.

No doubt it's a hell of a cast, but I can't see a movie with an average score of 29. What really bugs me is this: the movie is called "Rock the Kasbah," yet the song "Rock the Casbah" by The Clash is not on the movie's soundtrack! How can that possibly be? What were they thinking? I thought that was a given! Maybe that's why the movie is rated so poorly. Lesson learned: respect The Clash.