Rock the Kasbah
Director: Barry Levinson
Year Released: 2015
Rating: 1.0
Rock manager Richie Lanz (Bill Murray), floundering in California, accepts a chance to go to Afghanistan and take part in the USO tour with singer Ronnie (Zooey Deschanel) ... except Ronnie bolts, he goes looking for her (but never finds her) and makes some new acquaintances (a prostitute, arms dealers, a mercenary, a Tom Ford-and-Madonna-obsessed taxi driver) and even meets an Afghani woman (Leem Lubany) with an incredible voice. The script, by Mitch Glazer, is notably terrible - it introduces and discards characters as need be, it is never funny - and the message that 'rock and roll can unite cultures' is unbelievably naive. There are no American figures to pull for - it even manages to make Bill's huckster virtually charm-free (a difficult feat) - and the small success for Lubany's singer is not going to revamp a nation that ardently resists change and social progress.
