Directed by: Barry Levinson
Written by: Mitch Glazer
Cast: Bill Murray, Bruce Willis, Zooey Deschanel, Kate Hudson, Leem Lubany, Danny McBride, and Scott Caan
So I was sitting in the theater with a dozen film critics watching Kasbah, thinking this film with my comic idol Bill Murray was a dud, when all of a sudden I caught the ironic humor of the piece and I started to laugh, so did a few others. Thing is I kept on laughing, hard, so did a few others. The rest, not even a smile, and when we were walking out the others were looking at us like we were from another planet. They didn’t get it. And that’s the thing with this film, you have to catch the humor or you’re not going to like it.
Personally I like this kind of twisted sense of the absurd, have ever since I saw “The Discreet Charm Of The Bourgeoisie” as a kid and the same kind of experience occurred there as well. Here, Levinson takes the hero, a most absurd character and puts him in the most ridiculous situation on Earth and even though the circumstances are harrowing, you can’t help but laugh at the events as they unfold.
Here’s the storyline:
Based loosely on a real event, “Rock The Kasbah” tells the tale of Richie Vance (Murray) an extremely down-on-his-luck music manager who through a desperate need for money finds himself forced to take his singing secretary on a USO tour in Afghanistan. Through as series of unfortunate events he finds himself alone in Kabul with no money, no singer and no passport. Having been talked into the only job he can find, delivering ammunition to a desert community, he discovers a young girl with an extraordinary talent and becomes her manager.
Murray is extraordinary in his ability to underplay the seriousness of his situation, breaking into a sweat with measure craziness whenever he can’t take it. He’s like that guy you know who’s ready to accept that the deck is stacked against him and this is the end, but just can’t seem to let go of the belief he’ll over come it all somehow. That’s a base for some of the better laughs.
Everyone else in the cast, including Bruce Willis as a mercenary, and Kate Hudson as a Hooker with a heart are there only to support Murray’s desperation. It’s only Salima (newcomer Leem Lubany), as the Pashtun teen singer that Richie discovers who stands out as her own unique character and we are fascinated by both her and her performances.
So my take… the movie is a hit or miss for audiences, funny, entertaining, slow to begin, but if you catch what the filmmakers are throwing, you’ll like the laughs it delivers.
