The Rocker (USA, 2008)

Director: Peter Cattaneo

“Hey Jimmy Fallon! Do you want to star in a movie? It’ll be great. You’ll be called Corky Romano and they’ll be tons of whacky Mafia related mis-adventures! The script will written in children’s blood and the celluloid will be crafted from the flesh of nubile virgins! It’ll be great time for the whole family...of Satan!.”

- Exhibit Two Hundred Fifty Five in the ‘Bit Part actors taking on AN ENTIRE FEATURE FILM’ horror museum.

The Rocker’ stars Rainn Wilson. Yea, you guessed right, that guy in the picture up there is the one who play Dwight on the mega-hit sitcom “The Office.” Give him a little credit! It's always hard for someone to step out of the shadow of their defining performance (Especially when they have such a distinct look) and paint themselves anew in the feature length format. ‘The Rocker’ is Rain’s dive to start his own career and this is on it plaid.

Robert “Fish” Fishman was going to make it big. That was, until his band Vesuvies (which he named dammit!) kicked him out because the label told them too. Now it’s twenty years later and the dream is dead. Vesuvius is HUGE and Robert stuck in a dead end life. We pick up the tale just as our hero loses his job, breaks up with his girlfriend and moves in with his sister and her family. Out of nowhere his nephew loses their band’s drummer for the senior prom so as a last resort gamble he decides to use his uncle. It goes horribly rong but the rest of the pre-ten band-mates are slowly convinced that maybe they do have something on their hands. Something to make them HUGE!

I didn’t want to see The Rocker. The trailer passed my quota of people getting shots to the groin, knocking their noggin and falling off of thing comically. It was only because the screening I went too was completely free that I actually gave it a chance. And I’m happy I did, because, while the ‘The Rocker’ is filled with lame slapstick and convenient plot devices, it is the star turn by Rain that really makes. He’s a revelation here as someone that can play dead-pan comedy and drama in the same scene! I think the man should back away from being smacked with trees and get a some comedy/dramas under his belt. He’d been better at it.

The film moves at a brisk pace and the rest of the cast are from the Island of Judd Apatow players that time Forgot. There’s the girl from Superbad, the boss from 40 Year Old Version, a dark haired clone of Jonah Hill, and Jeff Garlin (The go to Fat Comedy Guy). Will Arnett is once again wasted as one the members of Vesuvius. Boo! Hiss! My biggest problem with the film where the generic music numbers that go on-and-on-and-on. Rain Wilson looks goofy playing the drums but that can only take me so far.

The Rocker will be remembered as the movie that launched Rain Wilson. Will the anything else be talked about fondly? Not really. It isn’t earth shattering, but much better than most comedies clogging the shelves.

NOTE: The Rocker is being released in August. I saw it at “North By Northeast” in Toronto 2008