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Rock the Kasbah

2/10

Stars: Bill Murray, Arian Moayed, Kate Hudson, Leem Lubany, Bruce Willis, Scott Caan, Danny McBride, Zooey Deschanel, Fahim Fazil

Director: Barry Levinson

There are some films that (unintentionally) review themselves.

Two lines of dialogue from this witless waste of film stock fit the bill to perfection. After some time a woman snaps “get me the hell out of here!”, a sentiment that impeccably summed up the entire sad experience; while it didn’t take me long to agree with the feelings of boredom that motivated Bill Murray’s early line “You make me want to swallow poison”.

Mitch Glazer’s undernourished screenplay has washed-up rock music manager Murray taking his new ‘discovery’ - actually his secretary Zooey Deschanel - on a USO tour in Afghanistan.

You have to admire the sheer lunacy of setting a comedy in war-torn Afghanistan and managing to persuade Murray, Bruce Willis and Kate Hudson, among others who should have known better, to attempt to wring laughs out of the situation.

The only memorable performance is that of Morocco which, moodily photographed by the cinematographer, plays Afghanistan and is possibly the movie’s sole credible element.



David Quinlan

USA 2015. UK Distributor: Sony . Colour.
102 minutes. Widescreen. UK certificate: 15.

Guidance ratings (out of 3): Sex/nudity 1, Violence/Horror 2, Drugs 2, Swearing 2.

Review date: 24 Jul 2016

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