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Tuesday, Nov 10, 2009
Mark Wahlberg stars in a heavy-metal "42nd Street" -- a rags to riches to flannel story.
Sep 7, 2001 | "Rock Star" is so conventional it telegraphs its intentions in the first 20 minutes: By that time you'll be an expert in guessing the next chord in the progression, right up to the coda. This is a rags-to-riches-to-flannel story, beginning with 1980s heavy-metal excess and ending with 1990s post-Nirvana plaid-shirt sincerity. Its spiritual equivalent is the mythical tale of the young small-town starlet, discovered in a coffee shop, who rises to fame only to realize that her roots are really back on the farm.
But a movie doesn't have to be surprising to have an enjoyable sheen. "Rock Star" takes place in an era not long past, and yet for anyone who has kept even half an eye on rock 'n' roll in the past 20 years (let alone 50), it seems like ages ago: in the 1980s, the years of heavy-metal excess. Back then, lovers of "true" rock 'n' roll spent a great deal of time and energy lashing out at head-banger music and its devoted fans, all done up in eyeliner, black lipstick and spandex. It was all posture! It was all bluster! It was mostly worthless! Or so we all said.
But enough time has elapsed, and so many things have happened (Kurt Cobain's taking his own life, for one) that heavy-metal looks different now, and "Rock Star" rides pleasingly on that nostalgia like a pasha on a flying cushion. Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) is the front man of Blood Pollution, a cover band specializing in the oeuvre of a megapopular metal band called Steel Dragon. (Chris won't allow people to call Blood Pollution a cover band; he corrects them with a sniff, asserting that it's a tribute band.) To his dismay and that of his longtime girlfriend Emily (Jennifer Aniston), his bandmates give him the boot. The reason? Creative differences. It's a tale as old as creation itself, or at least as old as Bon Jovi.
But Chris' despondence doesn't last long. When Steel Dragon's front man, Bobby Beers -- Chris' idol -- suddenly and mysteriously leaves the band, Chris gets a call out of nowhere: The other members of Steel Dragon want him to try out for Beers' slot. Chris and Emily fly out to L.A., where they are met at the airport by a vampiric dolly named Tania, played by the lusciously named Dagmara Dominczyk. After the requisite jitters and false starts, Chris is welcomed into the band.
And that's, of course, when all the trouble begins. But for its first half at least, "Rock Star" is patently ridiculous fun: In the early scenes, director Stephen Herek ("Bill and Ted's Excellent Adventure," "Mr. Holland's Opus") captures the exhilaration of playing in a rock 'n' roll band, any rock 'n' roll band -- he shows how at its essence, it's the same in small go-nowhere clubs as it is from the stage of an arena.
And Chris' dream-come-true induction into Steel Dragon is played like an adolescent boy's wet dream. But how else do you play an already-archetypal late 20th century fantasy? (The movie was inspired by the true story of a tribute-band singer who was invited to join Judas Priest.) Wahlberg is charming in the way he can't resist grinning from ear to ear in his first promo pics, even though he's all dolled up in tough-guy mascara and motocross leather. His gradual acclimation to the rock 'n' roll lifestyle (yes, Virginia, it does include drink and drugs, televisions thrown out of windows and as many girls -- and people who look like girls -- as you could possibly want) is presented as a comic-strip panel of the fantasies of those millions of kids who ever played air guitar while jumping up and down on the bed in socks and BVDs.
