Tenacious Flop

The Rocker Directed by Peter Cattaneo

In an ideal situation, Rainn Wilson would translate his ineffably strange quirks as the country bumpkin-turned-salesman Dwight on NBC’s The Office into large-scale oddities on the big screen. Unfortunately, The Rocker, Wilson’s first lead role in a feature film, emphasizes the wrong quirks.

It gives us an adult loser named Fish with childish ambitions, which is fine as far as trite exposition goes, but it’s never enough to evoke surprise, eerie discomfort or baffled wonderment—Wilson’s greatest strengths. Fish, whose teenage band mates ditched him for a new drummer before they hit big time, can’t get over the missed opportunity. At 40, he joins his high school nephew’s rock group, placing his ambitions in the wrong place, much like Wilson has done here.

Directed by Peter Cattaneo (The Full Monty) as a loose farce with a few well-timed jokes but hardly any sustainable gags, The Rocker suffers from a jagged script, sophomoric drama and a quizzical fixation on acting stupid as a source of comic inspiration. Wilson, however, seems perfectly content to play along, throwing his body into the performance in a variety of extended physical sequences, working up a sweat as he drums out a series of crazed rhythms. Slapstick should be the redeeming quality that sustains The Rocker through its weaker moments, but Wilson’s stunts never build to greatness; they suggest a good idea or two and then move right along.

In the most significant example, Fish and his younger band members (played, rather sharply if needlessly so, by Teddy Geiger, Josh Gad and Superbad’s Emma Stone) jam from their respective bedrooms via videoconference. Fish, unfamiliar with the technology, rocks out in the nude, an unintentional stunt that winds up on YouTube. As an overnight viral video star, Fish doesn’t become all that perturbed by the attention. In fact, he’s emboldened by it, and the band gets a nice boost in popularity. A few scenes later, however, the stunt is forgotten: Nobody asks Fish to strip bare onstage, missing the opportunity for the character to confront the gimmick behind his popularity.

The Rocker’s game cast includes Jane Lynch, Christina Applegate (as Fish’s unrealistic love interest) and Jeff Garlin, another television actor whose mere presence suggests an onslaught of giggles. Garlin does land a few precious moments of good-natured comic appeal, but he’s clearly been subdued by a movie that has more interest in seeking out Wilson’s cinematic potential. Unfortunately, Wilson doesn’t find it because his messy satire of outlandish rocker stereotypes never feels entirely earnest.

It’s almost as if Wilson—and, to be fair, the filmmakers—can’t figure out if Fish fully realizes the absurd dead-end trajectory of his reckless ways. No stranger to mockumentary, Wilson delivers a performance that’s at once knowing and befuddling. He’s a wannabe Christopher Guest character who can’t figure out when the cameras are rolling and when they’re best left off.