Rock Star

In 1996, British heavy-metal dorks Judas Priest replaced lead singer Rob Halford with Tim "Ripper" Owens, the singer from an American Priest tribute band. Owens, an office-supply sales drone by day and rock-and-roll dreamer by night, actually got to live my?I mean, his?yearned-for fantasy lifestyle of music, powerful narcotics and an endless supply of skanky backstage rock chicks as the frontman of his favorite band. Sounds like it would make a pretty raunchy kick-ass movie, right? To director Steven Herek (Mr. Holland's Opus, for god?s sake) it must have sounded like a perfect springboard for a clumsy, familiar story that unconvincingly reaffirms mainstream values as it rips the vitality out of the source material. Foregoing the verité of a metal-hostile mid-'90s setting, Rock Star takes place in the mid-1980s, with Mark Wahlberg as Owens' stand-in. The film follows a basic, predictable arc to an all-too-pat conclusion, declining the opportunity to examine the more interesting aspects of the story?at one point, Wahlberg's manager tells him that it's his working responsibility to live the decadence about which others only dream?in favor of fairly standard monogamous-love-is-the-answer crap. For hardcore bathos fans only.