Am i the only one who thinks........Average?

It's funny, it's tense, it features two great performances from two actors and the director expertly creates a web of odd tension where you actually don't know what is happening for the majority of the run time.

Each character in this movie — down to the smallest one — is an individual rather than a type, prone to spontaneous changes of mood and sometimes amusing outbursts of pettiness or ill humor.

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

For a movie with an interesting plot, and enough well known talents to have you assume the best, this movie seems to get lost in itself.The film starts off with a story that will make you want to know more and characters that you want to see grow in front of your own eyes. I was intrigued by all of this and was excited to see what would happen to all of these people.The story starts off well executed and with a simple yet surprisingly fun story.But somewhere around the halfway point, the movie does a U-turn. Taking back everything that it made you grow attached to. With the story, the characters and even the setting turning into something that doesn't quite click with all of it's own setup.I was left confused as to the reasoning behind the deeper motives of the main character. And I was also inclined to ask why this movie shook loose all of these characters that it spent time persuading you were going to be a bigger part.This movie had a great setup with some well thought out story telling, but by the end I was left not caring about what happened to who, or why they were there in the first place. And the only thing that I took was the message that they were trying to send about women's rights. That right there was the only thing that i could gather from it's shaky story telling, but even that seemed to be undermined by the protagonist's motives.

Rock the Kasbah had a provocative idea "based on true events", but its emotional strength is unfortunately lost due to the narrative clumsiness and irregular tone from this horrible film. The main problem of Rock the Kasbah is a screenplay saturated of characters and improbable situations which never end up forming a coherent story. Besides, the rhythm and edition of Rock the Kasbah are so poor that they never reach that authentic organic flow to take us logically from one scene to the other. In Rock the Kasbah, things happen due to the simple whim from screenwriter Mitch Glazer, who wasn't able to adequately connect them with each other. I think the screenplay needed much more work (at least two or three revisions in order to tune the details and find a better balance between the disparate elements). And the same can be said about the edition... even though I wouldn't blame editor Aaron Yanes either, because there are occasions in which there's simply not the necessary material to rescue a film. As for the cast, Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, Danny McBride, Scott Caan, Fahim Fazil and Leem Lubany do whatever they can with their poorly written characters. In conclusion, Rock the Kasbah is an absolute disaster, and another one of the various missteps director Barry Levinson has had in this century (such as Bandits, Envy and What Just Happened).

This is a Bill Murray movie. It's a Billy Murray comedy. It is also not a comedy in that it's about the brick walls and fears between Eastern and Western deeply formed norms. Both cultures have had some customs steeped in things very wrong, one slowly evolved to embrace needed changes and it isn't easy because it goes on today. The other culture is stuck in a stew of religious based fervor and long-standing tradition of which it struggles to allow any change. That struggle has come to the more developed world at large now and it is particularly messy because it includes much terrorism linked to it all regardless of what groups inside these Eastern countries are actually directly involved. I say all of this because for all the Bill Murray comedy this movie has a poignant side with a heart as it tells a fictitious story of two cultures clashing with a desperate man trying to save his career against a thousand years of strongly held beliefs against which he's oblivious to. This is a kind of land mine in a movie blending something beneath so subversive to a nation that actually could be a sea change for the better of that nation and the larger world. Music has a magic ability to transcend so much as witnessed by the fact that in the early sixties Motown brought a quantum shift in making music colorblind. So, for all the comedy there is something here that isn't funny at all, something that's bigger.Bill Murray is playing a role he's well suited for at his age, that of a music manager well past his shelf life struggling for one more chance to get not just his career, but his life, back. He's devolved into something that only dire straights can create and he's perfect for it. In his current situation he's an arrest away from criminal fraud and in this he thinks he gets a break to take his only "talent" to perform in Afghanistan. With Murray we know nothing can be easy so it's 100% predictable after this setup that when the movie really gets going so do new troubles that make his old troubles seem pretty good in comparison. His talent flees, she steals his passport and money, and being his meal ticket he's got nothing and is in a very hostile country he can't even leave.In this morass we get some A-List co-stars that are obliviously on board (i.e. this ain't a blockbuster, nor is it intended to be) because they love Bill. Richie Lenz (Murray) is in a bad way and, of course, it attracts some over-the-top crazies. Crazees include Danny McBride and Bruce Willis doing what they do best. It adds some color to be sure even if they don't have maximum screen time. At first I thought Kate Hudson was just not right for her role, a high-end hooker making a final nest egg where it's easy pickins', but she's great on camera so just roll with it as they say. As Murray is just trying to get some dough to exit the country he finds something he believes is special. Think of it as the next Adele, which is like the next Celine Dion, but in Afghanistan women singing is totally taboo. He gets her because she thinks it's destined and, somehow she becomes a contestant on the Afghan version of American Idol. This is the middle part and what happens next is Murray stretching out beyond his comedy chops as he does well when given that role. Is it believable? Well, I wouldn't bet against the power of music as a bridge which allows two disparate sides to finally meet.

I sat through it. Give me credit. Was it horrible? Uh, no, not horrible. Was it a good movie? Uh, no, not a good movie. Were there a couple of chuckles and did it kill time? Yes. Did it need more Zooey? Yes, oh yes. But alas, she left early on and it went downhill. I guess there was a background story here about a Afghanistan girl and a talent show and the politics involved. I get the idea but didn't buy how it was presented on screen. Probably a real important issue but this movie didn't do it justice. Give them credit for trying? Okay.There was some interesting scenery.You like Bill Murray? You want to see him be Bill? Fine, go for it. Otherwise, I doubt you make it through it.