When you think of "rockers," Rainn Wilson probably isn't the first person who comes to mind.That's largely due to the role he's most known for, Steve Carell's annoyingly clingy and anal-retentive sidekick Dwight Schrute on NBC's "The Office." On this show, the geeky man-child Dwight is quite possibly the anti-rocker.
In "The Rocker," Wilson plays Robert "Fish" Fishman, an aging rock star wannabe in Cleveland who was kicked out of his former band, Vesuvius, 20 years ago for being the black sheep of the Motley Crue-esque glam rock band.
Of course, Vesuvius hit the big time shortly after ditching Fish, while he spent the past two decades wondering "What if?" from his desk answering phone calls for a metal company.
Fish gets a second chance to live the rock 'n roll lifestyle when his nephew asks him to join his band, A.D.D., for their senior prom performance. A.D.D. is the kind of squeaky-clean pop band who would probably do a mean cover of a Jonas Brothers song.
Although he brings the prom show to a halt by going all "Dr. Feelgood" on a Peter Gabriel slow dance tune, Fish ends up pushing the young musicians to pursue their dreams, which include landing a record deal, going on tour and trashing hotel rooms. Well, the last dream solely belongs to Fish, but he's nice enough to bring the kiddies along for the ride.
At the end of the day, "The Rocker" is largely a cheap knockoff of 2003's "The School of Rock" starring Jack Black. While obviously a lesser effort than that movie, the best thing I can say about "The Rocker" is that it's at least a little bit better than it has any business being.
Whatever level of success this film occasionally reaches is entirely on Wilson's shoulders, as the rest of the cast is more suited for an after-school special than it is a feature film. Although he is by no means a comic genius playing the Will Ferrell type of character for the duration of a 100-minute motion picture, Wilson manages to be almost appealing in a creepy uncle kind of way.
His juvenile take on life includes notable one-liners such as "'Too loud' isn't in my vocabulary" and "You don't ask your parents for permission to rock!" Youngsters in the audience seemed to enjoy many of the sophomoric jokes here, which made me question my own sense of humor when I laughed out loud, which I admit did occur a handful of times.
When he's not doling out fatherly advice on topics such as self-esteem, courage and abandonment issues to his wet-behind-the-ears bandmates, he's chugging beers, throwing TVs out of hotel room windows, trying to pick up groupies and playing drums naked for the entire YouTube nation to view.
This is sometimes amusing, in a sweetly stupid manner. Well, except for the nudity part — for those keeping score at home, Wilson is not a particularly attractive individual sans clothing, and seeing him in such a state in far from amusing.
In the vast library of rock 'n roll stories committed to film, "The Rocker" will probably be remembered in the same class as the likes of 2001's "Rock Star," featuring Mark Wahlberg. That is, it won't be remembered at all.
Despite its corniness, lame plot and utter lack of originality, I can't help but consider "The Rocker" to be the slightest bit likeable and memorable — kind of like that annoyingly catchy Jonas Brothers ditty in that new Target commercial.
Joel Sensenig is news editor of the Review Times.