Rock Star (2001)

User Rating:

5.8/10   

Director:

Stephen Herek

Writer (WGA):

John Stockwell (written by)

Release Date:

7 September 2001 (USA)

Genre:

Comedy | Drama | Music

Tagline:

Every guy wants to be you. Every girl wants to be with you.

Plot:

Lead singer of a tribute band becomes lead singer of the real band he idolizes.

Plot Keywords:

Topless | Female Nudity | Box Office Flop | Beautiful Woman | Lesbian

Awards:

1 nomination

Cast

Mark Wahlberg	...	Chris 'Izzy' Cole
Jennifer Aniston	...	Emily Poule
Jason Flemyng	...	Bobby Beers, Steel Dragon Lead Singer
Dominic West	...	Kirk Cuddy, Steel Dragon Guitarist
Jason Bonham	...	A.C., Steel Dragon Drummer
Jeff Pilson	...	Jorgen, Steel Dragon Bassist
Zakk Wylde	...	Ghode, Steel Dragon Guitarist
Timothy Spall	...	Mats, Steel Dragon Road Manager
Timothy Olyphant	...	Rob Malcolm, Blood Pollution Guitarist
Blas Elias	...	Donny Johnson, Blood Pollution Drummer
Nick Catanese	...	Xander Cummins, Blood Pollution Guitarist
Brian Vander Ark	...	Ricki Bell, Blood Pollution Bassist
Dagmara Dominczyk	...	Tania Asher, Steel Dragon Public Relations
Matthew Glave	...	Joe Cole
Michael Shamus Wiles	...	Mr. Cole

Also Known As:

Metal God (USA) (working title)
So You Wanna Be a Rock Star? (USA) (working title)
Untitled Stephen Herek Project (USA) (working title)

MPAA:

Rated R for language, sexuality and some drug content.

Runtime:

105 min

Country:

USA

Language:

English

Color:

Color (Technicolor)

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Sound Mix:

DTS | Dolby Digital | SDDS

Certification:

Iceland:L | Philippines:PG-13 | Finland:K-7 | Canada:13+ (Quebec) | South Africa:13L | Canada:14 (Nova Scotia) | Canada:14A (Alberta/British Columbia/Manitoba) | Canada:AA (Ontario) | USA:R (certificate #37887) | Argentina:13 | Germany:12 | Netherlands:AL | Norway:11 | Spain:13 | Sweden:7 | UK:15 | Australia:M

Filming Locations:

1st Ave & Pike Street, Seattle, Washington, USA

Company:

Warner Bros. Pictures

Trivia:

The majority of the musicians in the movie are actual musicians: Mark Wahlberg fronted Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch; 'Jason Bonham' (A.C., Steel Dragon drummer) is son of John Bonham and frontman of 80's hair band Bonham; Jeff Pilson (Jorgen, Steel Dragon bassist) is bassist for 80's hair band Dokken; Zakk Wylde (Ghode, Steel Dragon guitarist) has played with a ton of bands including Ozzy Osbourne and has his own band, Black Label Society; Blas Elias (Donny, Blood Pollution drummer) is drummer of 80's hair band Slaughter; Brian Vander Ark (Ricki Bell, Blood Pollution bassist) is singer and guitarist in The Verve Pipe; Nick Catanese (Xander Cummins, Blood Pollution guitarist) is guitarist in Wylde's Black Label Society; Stephan Jenkins (Bradley, Black Babylon singer) is singer for Third Eye Blind; Colleen Fitzpatrick (Guitarist outside the Steel Dragon mansion) is better known as Vitamin C; Myles Kennedy (Thor) joined Alter Bridge with ex-Creed members after leaving his band, The Mayfield Four. The majority of the songs are also played by original 80's hair band musicians,including Wahlberg's singing voice which belongs to 'Mike Matijevic', lead singer of Steelheart. Steve Plunkett was the lead singer of Autograph, an 80's hair band band with a Top 30 hit "Turn up the Radio". He plays the photographer in the scene where "Chris" does his first photo shoot with Steel Dragon. Steve Plunkett also co-wrote the song "Living the Life"

Goofs:

Anachronisms: When Chris and Emily enter Kirk's mansion you see an image of Kirk Kuddy and Bruce Dickinson (Iron Maiden), but that picture of Bruce wasn't taken until the early '90s.

Quotes:

Emily: Oh no no... I could make you a pair of those. But first you gotta tell me what you shove in there to make people think you're a guy.

Movie Connections:

References Three Kings (1999)

Soundtrack:

Colorful

High Entertainment Value Compensates for Plot Problems

I've been looking forward to the release of this movie since I first heard the concept two years ago, and I was not disappointed. I won't bother summarizing the story since everyone else has, but I will say that it was just plain entertaining throughout. The performances were great, as was the music, and the main characters were likeable.

My only complaints are: (1) the story was definitely lacking; the movie wrapped up very abruptly- in fact the writing became pretty lax in the second half, as though the writers weren't sure what to do with the plot. Since the plot wasn't nearly as important as the music and the action, this didn't really affect the entertainment value of the film, so this is not as major a complaint as it would seem.

(2) This is really nitpicky, but the music that the characters in the movie were listening to was sometimes dated after 1985, when the movie was set. INXS' Devil Inside was from 1987 and AC/DC's Are You Ready was from 1990, among other mistakes. This bothers me a bit, since they obviously went to lengths to make a good period piece, they could have checked the copyright date on these songs to make sure they were 1985 or earlier. Again, not a big deal.

Oh, I thought of something else that was strange. The Steel Dragon band members were supposed to be English, but for some reason Dokken bassist Jeff Pilson and Ozzy guitarist Zakk Wylde played band members, and they each had a couple of speaking lines in AMERICAN accents. That was kind of lazy also, but it was still cool to see actual musicians playing musicians, so I will forgive that as well.

I could probably nitpick all day, but I don't want to give the impression that this wasn't a super entertaining movie. I will probably buy the DVD when it comes out, and I will certainly buy the soundtrack CD simply for the six Steel Dragon songs (some of which were sung by the singer from the band Steelheart, if you remember them!). The highlight of the film was possibly a great outtake where Mark Wahlberg is lipsynching to a rock song on stage and suddenly someone plays "Good Vibrations" by Marky Mark and the Funky Bunch. The surprised look of Mark's face is priceless. Classic rock and roll flick! Score: 8/10 due to extreme entertainment