The Unseen Movie Review: The Rocker

By Robert Dixter Aug 20, 2008, 14:06 GMT

The Rocker tells the story of a failed drummer who is given a second chance at fame. Robert "Fish" Fishman is the extremely dedicated and astoundingly passionate drummer for the eighties hair band Vesuvius, who is living the rock n\' roll dream until he is unceremoniously kicked out of the band. Twenty years after his rock star fantasies are destroyed, just when Fish has finally given up all hope, he ...more

Sometimes you see an actor in a certain role and you can’t imagine anyone else ever playing that part.  Dustin Hoffman in Rain Man, Daniel Day Lewis in There Will Be Blood, or Sofia Coppola in Godfather 3. 

Then sometimes you see an actor in a certain role and you can’t imagine him ever playing another part.  That’s how I look at Rainn Wilson.  He is great as Dwight Schrute on The Office but I can’t imagine him playing any other roles (I also can’t imagine him conceiving any babies but I think that’s a good thing). 

I saw him in a supporting role in Sahara with Matthew McConaughey and I thought he was horribly miscast.  More recently he showed up in Juno, and again the words coming out of his mouth sounded as though Dwight were saying them and he didn’t fit with the rest of the movie. (This was followed by a terrible job as host of the Spirit awards.)  This week he’s popping up in The Rocker and my feeble brain can’t make the jump from Dwight to Robert Fishman.  My feeble brain also can’t understand why people really care about Britney Spears or why people actually showed up to see Transformers.  I know I should see an actor who is morphing into a new role but all I see is Dwight talking about beets.

Even if I could get past the fact that Rainn is Dwight, The Rocker looks like a bad retread of School of Rock.  The old guy wants to rock and I’m supposed to laugh? 

Why don’t old guys try doing something that only really young guys can do like have sex three times in one night.  And I heard they were making a sequel to School of Rock so do we really need The Rocker?  Rainn has been trying to promote this film non stop and you can’t really blame the guy, it is his first foray into leading role territory.  But what happens on the set of The Office after hiatus when everyone reconvenes and begins discussing their summer adventures? 

Rainn will mention how he was doing press everywhere for The Rocker and then Steve Carell will say how he farted out Get Smart and it still made over $100 million.  Then just to really fan the flames Steve will probably also mention that he made Evan Almighty last year and everyone thought it was garbage but still climbed to $100 million.  Then Rainn will go cry in his trailer until John Krasinski knocks on his door and tells him he was in Leatherheads.

The only reason to really see this movie is the incomparable Jane Lynch.  She is hysterical in anything she does.  She stole every scene she was in during 40 Year Old Virgin.  Because of Jane I’ll give The Rocker a try…on DVD.