Movie Review - 'The Rocker'

The Rocker

Starring Rainn Wilson, Christina Applegate, and Teddy Geiger
Directed by Peter Cattaneo
Rated PG-13

The new comedy The Rocker is both slightly better than its premise and slightly worse than it should be. There are some great little moments that unfortunately are balanced with a couple misfires, although it does showcase something different from Rainn Wilson (The Office) than we've seen before.

Robert "Fish" Fishman (Wilson) was the original drummer in Vesuvius, one of the biggest hard rock bands of all times. Because he didn't have the right look for the band, though, Vesuvius dumped him unceremoniously right as their journey to the top began to take off. It's not by chance that former Beatles drummer Pete Best has a cameo.

Fish has never been able to let it go; 20 years later, Vesuvius is one of the world's biggest bands and he's stuck working in a call center. But he sees his chance to live the rock n' roll life when his nephew's high school band needs a drummer for their first-ever gig at the prom. It's probably the first ever prom performance that included a lengthy drum solo in the middle of "In Your Eyes."

The band does slowly generate interest, though, in part because their songs are catchy and in part because Fish is the butt of the joke - literally - after video of him practicing naked winds up on the internet. I thought one of the biggest missteps in The Rocker was having this high school band, ADD, rise to the top of their vocation over summer break. There are ways to convey the same thing, particularly with a character who longs for any success, without having the band-on-tour montage and the shoot-their-video montage and the watch-them-go-up-the-charts montage.

I think Wilson shows a real gung ho attitude, even though the character is a little underwritten. He has become famous for playing one of the most unusual characters on television, but Wilson has not brought Dwight Schrute to his movie roles. With The Last Mimzy, his walk-on in Juno, and The Rocker, he has played entirely different characters; at least he's not Rob Schneider.

But the rest of the movie doesn't get out of its own way. Ironically, movies tend to tell the same kinds of stories over and over because audiences can connect with them, but we also stop connecting with movies when we sense they're getting lazy. The Rocker doesn't show us very much that's new. It tries to be funny about it, and when it works - SNL cast member Jason Sudeikis' blisteringly funny record label exec - it makes you wonder why the rest of the story is so passe.

And The Rocker is too keen on making you like everyone. With the exception of Vesuvius and the record executive, neither of which are around that long, the characters are too perfectly cut to be believed. So even though I appreciate where Wilson was heading with his deluded drummer in this, there will be no encore.