Rock on, Dude

By Dan Hudak

Real-life pop star Teddy Geiger portrays budding rocker Curtis. Photo by George Kraychyk

Naked drumming may be funny for the wrong reasons when Matthew McConaughey does it with his bongos, but Rainn Wilson (The Office) makes it comedic gold in The Rocker, a laugh-out-loud movie with a strong cast and permanent wink in its eye.

Wilson plays Robert “Fish” Fishman, a distraught drummer who in the mid-’80s was ditched by the heavy metal band Vesuvius right before it became famous. Despondent and bitter, he works a menial desk job and hates life. Although he’s sworn off playing again, he reluctantly agrees to help his teenage nephew Matt’s (Josh Gad) garage band when its drummer bails. He does, it goes well, and the band now has hope.

Matt, lead singer Curtis (Teddy Geiger) and bassist Amelia (Emma Stone, Superbad) know Fish is a loose cannon, but they need him. Unexpectedly, Fish’s underwear-only drumming while recording a demo soon becomes a YouTube sensation, prompting a record producer (a very funny Jason Sudeikis) to sign the band, now called A.D.D.    

Hilarity would not ensue if Fish were a responsible adult while the band tours, which means scenes in which the teenagers’ parents ask Fish to take care of their kids are sort of a waste of energy. The scenes do, however, give face time to supporting players such as Curtis’ mom (Christina Applegate) and others, all of whom writers Maya Forbes and Wallace Wolodarsky could have easily left out of the story. After all, just because scenes and characters are mildly amusing doesn’t make them necessary, and there’s nothing the parents (also played by Jane Krakowski, Jeff Garlin and Jane Lynch, among others) do that makes the movie better.

No, the real fun is watching Wilson make an ass of himself. The naked drumming routine amply shows off a body that he has no business showing off, and Wilson’s repeated insistence on taking scenes too far — such as trying to get the teenagers to drink and party because “that’s what you do on the road!!” — has a charm that defies judgment and allows you to laugh at the irresponsibility.

Credit for this also goes to director Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty), who does a nice job of setting the appropriate lighthearted tone early and sticks with it throughout. The original music by drummer Chad Fischer (Scrubs theme music) is also catchy and appealing — a must for a movie in which we’re supposed to believe rock stars are made in the basement of a suburban teenager’s home.

In a way, The Rocker is an odd retread of Jack Black’s School of Rock, but its silliness has an appeal all its own. We feel sorry for Fish and then root for him, and because he’s a self-pitying burnout who gets a second chance at fame that he rightly deserves, it’s fun to laugh with his craziness. Yes, he’s pathetic, but what man wouldn’t like to relive the wild life of his youth, especially if that time was unceremoniously taken from him?