will probably play better on home video

Rating: Null/10 (9 September 2001)

I got the feeling while I was watching "Rock Star" that this film was trying to do cinematically for the 80's hair metal craze what "Boogie Nights" did for the world of 70's porn. However, I would only call it coincidence that both films feature Mark Wahlberg in the lead. That is where the similarities stop though. While "Boogie" was a stylish, wickedly funny and often moving (not to mention realistic) look at it's subject, "Rock Star" is contrived, flat and largely unaffecting. Wahlberg does his part to redeem himself from his blank expression of a performance in "Planet of the Apes" here, playing a tribute band singer turned rock star with a very genuine feeling authenticity that allows you to sympathize with the charcter, even if he is-like EVERY other character in the movie-poorly written and underdeveloped. The former Marky Mark could look just as much in place working hardware in Wal-Mart as schmoozing at some Hollywood party, and that's a gift he's fortunate to have. The rest of the cast is pretty underwhelming; nobody's BAD by any means, but, like the direction, the cast is merely competent. Jennifer Aniston, cute and likable as always, ismore or less channeling her character from friends while the supporting players left no impression at all. Another problem with the film is that it cannot make up it's mind-one minute it's a cute, smirky running joke/homage to an era gone by (a la "Wedding Singer"), the next minute a "shocking behind the scenes look" at a world of debauchery and betrayal before finally settling as a ho-hum melodrama. While Wahlberg seems as if he knew exactly what he was doing with the character, the never quite finds it's own tone or rhythm, leaving the viewer with a film that's not wholly unpleasant, just unmemorable.