Rock Star (2001)

Rock Star is a musical drama that tells the story of Chris "Izzy" Cole,a tribute band singer that replaced the lead vocalist of his favorite band,Steel Dragon.It stars Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. John Stockwell wrote the story and Stephen Herek directed the film.Izzy is a wannabe rock star.He works as a copy machine repairman at day and is the lead vocalist of Blood Pollution,a tribute band that imitates the hugely popular Steel Dragon.She is supported by Emily,who is his girlfriend and business manager of the band.One day,there members of the band got into an argument that led to the dismissal of Chris from the group.However,he later got a call from Steel Dragon to audition.After the rehearsal with them,Chris got offered to join the group as their new lead vocalist.The band went on to be successful with him but later he realized that there is more to life than being in the limelight. I got into the film after reading the story of Journey's new vocalist,Arnel Pineda.His story is definitely similar to the movie although it happened after 7 years the movie was released.It was synonymous in the sense that a once Journey cover singer Arnel got to become Journey's frontman. It was interesting to note though that the movie was inspired from Judas Priest but what happened was even life imitated art in history of Journey that is why I was entertained with the movie.As a whole though,I felt that the movie just provided us a glimpse on the world of rock and roll bands as it fell into cliché after cliché of a typical romantic comedy that provides both humor and life lessons as the conclusion comes near.In short,there was really nothing original and refreshing about it expect probably the fact that we have story on a rock and roll setting.

It's Pittsburg in the 80s. Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) idolizes the band Steel Dragon and works tirelessly to emulate them in a tribute band. His girlfriend Emily Poule (Jennifer Aniston) is his biggest fan. He repairs copying machines and still lives at home. His cop brother dismisses his dream. After an on stage fight with his guitarist Rob (Timothy Olyphant), he is kicked out of the band as they want to start playing their own music. Then a surprise call from Steel Dragon guitarist Kirk Cuddy (Dominic West) for Chris to audition for the band as he fires the lead singer Bobby Beers.Mark Wahlberg has good likability as the dreamer and does a good rock star imitation. Jennifer Aniston is pretty good. She isn't doing anything out of her comfort zone. There are some rocking music even if Marky Mark doesn't do the singing. It's an earnest recreation like a tribute band. What this movie needs is a lot more jokes. Falling off the stairs could have been funny but it's played very seriously. The story is just too filled with clichés for me to take seriously. It feels very superficial and not gritty enough. In the end, I enjoyed Wahlberg's commitment to his character.

This is a movie that no viewer should take seriously, and simply enjoy for its funny, cliché'd, bubblegum take on the 1980s metal/hair band thing.Mark Wahlberg's acting is a bit wooden, but it works in this film because he's playing a young man who is uncomfortable in his own skin (very much the same kind of performance he delivers in Boogey Nights). Aniston is miscast. She's too polished for the girlfriend/manager role, but she's tolerable. Good supporting performances by Timothy Spall, Dominic West, Dagmara Dominczyk, Jason Flemyng, Tim Olyphant and Matthew Glave. The supporting performances are a strength of the movie, along with the music, which is very well done. I'm not a metal fan, but the movie has a handful of very catchy tunes. The concerts feel real enough. The dialog works and the plot moves along at a decent pace, delivering a number of laughs and a palpable feel for the rise-fall-reborn sequence of the Chris Cole/Izzy character.Recommended for light-hearted viewing.

A simple film that plugs in a talented singer for a cover band dreaming to become a genuine 80's rock star. Chris (later to be known as Izzy), is looked upon as a strong leader of his cover band but eventually his obsession with Steel Dragon (his favorite band)and unwillingness to alter the bands sound creates waves of dissatisfaction to his fellow band mates. After a confrontation over the seriousness and intention of playing cover songs, Chris was thought to be misdirected and was eventually kicked out of his own band. Things change, however, after two girls who make themselves out to be groupies, showed front man and lead guitarist Kurt Cunning his video performance. He auditions, he gets in and the rest is pretty simple.I cringed at the end when he would eventually reunite with the girl that he thought got away. I didn't expect this film to go to that region of cheese that you often see in big production films that are distributed by Warner Bros. It almost seems like the writers of the film had no experience and did not conduct interviews to grasp the detail of what life as a rock star really was about. It kept inquisitive guys like myself to prefer to have seen real video clips and interviews from some of the top selling bands of the 80's without the stereotypical and scrape off the top story. It became formulated and predictable to say the least, but the film still has a spark of charm as it relives all of our rock star fantasies that we had when we were kids.6/10.