We live in an age when a boyish man with a Barry White monotone, a synthesizer and a video camera can be as famous as Michael Phelps. YouTube has changed the way we look at celebrities – anyone can become a household name for accomplishing the simplest of things, which are then discussed, spread and evaluated via word-of-mouth, blogs and Best Week Ever. Even a hamster can sweep the nation.
Buried within The Rocker’s formulaic comedy was a chance to explore YouTube fame – or at least mock it. Instead, the film’s story of a teenage band with a middle-aged drummer who finds success via the Internet barely touches on the phenomenon, using it only as a plot device.
Rainn Wilson (The Office) stars as Robert “Fish” Fishman, the 40-year-old ex-drummer of mega glam-rock band Vesuvius – only no one knows it. The band kicked him out before it signed its first record deal. When Vesuvius releases its new album, Fish freaks out and loses his job, his girlfriend and his apartment. He moves in with his sister, (Jane Lynch, Space Chimps), who happens to have a son, Matt (Josh Gad, Back to You), who plays keyboard in a band, A.D.D., booked to play at the high school prom – and oh yeah, they need a drummer.
To the chagrin of Matt’s bandmates, Fish joins the band, and the gig goes OK. Eventually, he scores the band an out-of-town show, so the band members sneak out of their respective houses, stealing Fish’s sister’s van in the process, to travel to the gig. She finds out, the parents are furious, Fish gets kicked out of the house, and the rest of the band is grounded. Matt has an idea however, and using webcams, the band holds rehearsal.
And thus, YouTube (marginally) comes into play.
Fish, now living in the basement of a Chinese restaurant he frequents, decides to rehearse in the nude, and Matt’s little sister catches Fish in the buff. She manages to record the practice and puts “The Naked Drummer” on the Internet, and in the oh-so-classic montage, we see the video spread.
The video catches the eye of a record executive for the laughs, but it’s the song the band is playing that keeps him watching. After about 30 seconds of deliberation, the band signs a deal, and they go in to record an album. After only one show where the marquee reads “A.D.D., featuring THE NAKED DRUMMER,” the theme of YouTube-celebrity drops out of the picture. Instead, A.D.D. starts to gain fame for its songs – no one even addresses The Naked Drummer again.
It would be one thing if the band actually gained its fame for the songs at first, but it didn’t – it was YouTube.
For some reason, writers Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky saw it fit to brush off the YouTube aspect. There was a chance here to explore what happens to instant celebrities, making the film something more than what it becomes: standard fare.
The rest of the story sees the band rising to fame and eventually having to grapple with the fact they have a middle-aged drummer playing behind them.
Singer/songwriter Teddy Geiger, in his film debut, plays Curtis, the band’s lead singer with serious daddy issues. Emma Stone (in her first role since her spectacular turn in last summer’s Superbad) plays A.D.D.’s bassist with an attitude.
Wilson does his best to try and shake Dwight Schrute, but he ends up playing a similarly dim-witted character – he’s just a bit more realistic than Schrute. Wilson relies mostly on physical gags to incite laughter.
The rest of the cast does the usual mannequin acting job required for all teen comedies, with Geiger overacting at times – he’s a singer first, actor second, after all – Gad providing occasional laughs and Stone doing her best emo-girl impression.
But the problem with The Rocker isn’t very difficult to identify. In fact, it’s pretty basic: The film doesn’t really offer much of anything. There are a few occasional laughs, a heartwarming story and some tired gags. It’s not necessarily a bad movie, just an incredibly bland one.
The Rocker also can’t seem to decide on its audience. At times, it seems fit for the young adult demographic, maybe even branching out to Wilson’s collegiate and adult fanbase. At other times, the comedy amounts to nothing more than a kids’ movie. But unlike The School of Rock, one of the movie’s familiar reference points, The Rocker seems more likely to get lost between audiences, never quite finding its core.
This isn’t the vehicle to catapult Wilson into superstardom; it’s simply a late-summer fix, ripe for viewing on Comedy Central where it should play fairly well one day in Saving Silverman’s after-school slot – a time when audiences want to space out to something worth forgetting.
rudi.greenberg@gmail.com
