Rating summary

Movie		3.0
Video		4.0
Audio		4.5
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

Rock Star Blu-ray Movie Review

Lightweight Metal

Reviewed by Michael Reuben April 18, 2014

Rock Star was inspired by the true story of Tim Owens, the lead singer in a Judas Priest tribute band, who replaced Rob Halford as lead singer of Judas Priest when Halford left the band. The film enjoyed widespread support from the heavy metal community, both in front of and behind the camera, and the star was Mark Wahlberg, who might not have been capable of an Eighties rock star’s ear-splitting shrieks (his singing was dubbed) but was certainly no stranger to the wild life, as he helped dramatize a few years later in Entourage. No one aimed for anything but an R rating; bare flesh abounded, and frank language flowed freely. The film should have been an uproarious romp about living the dream of becoming rock royalty, but it died at the box office and is little remembered today.

Is Rock Star poised for rediscovery on Blu-ray? Sadly, no. It’s a pleasant enough diversion, with sweet performances by Wahlberg, Jennifer Aniston and the always reliable Timothy Spall, but that’s the problem right there. No one goes to a film about an Eighties “big hair” band for sweetness. They go for indulgence, excess and debauchery. The script by John Stockwell (Blue Crush) and the direction by Stephen Herek (Mr. Holland’s Opus) try to have it both ways. They want Wahlberg’s hero to get his feet wet wading in sin, but not dive in head first so that he risks drowning—which is just what the audience came to see.

Pittsburgh native Chris Cole (Wahlberg) works by day as an office tech servicing copiers, but his true vocation is singing as frontman for Blood Pollution, a tribute band to Steel Dragon, the reigning heavy metal champions. Backed by exceptionally supportive parents (Beth Grant and Michael Shamus Wiles) and an indulgent girlfriend named Emily (Aniston), Chris shrieks out perfect recreations of Steel Dragon performances, accompanied by his best friend, Rob (Timothy Olyphant), and other assorted musicians (Blas Elias of Slaughter, Nick Catanese of Black Label Society and Brian Vander Ark of Black Label Society).

The big change in Chris’s life results from two band breakups, which Herek deliberately stages in parallel to demonstrate that all bands are the same, no matter how big or small. The first results from Rob’s decision that Blood Pollution should no longer be a tribute band but should write and perform their own songs; as a result, Chris is history, replaced by a new lead singer (played by Stephan Jenkins, frontman for Third Eye Blind). The second breakup comes when Steel Dragon’s lead singer, Bobby Beers (Jason Flemyng), quits the band; the remaining members, led by guitarist Kirk Cuddy (Dominic West), go in search of someone who can maintain their trademark sound, and they find a tape of Blood Pollution in performance. One audition later, and Chris Cole, Steel Dragon’s greatest fan, is being introduced to the world as their new lead singer.

(The other members of Steel Dragon are all real musicians: Jeff Pilson, formerly of Dokken; Zakk Wylde, former guitarist for Ozzy Osbourne; and Jason Bonham, ex-drummer for Foreigner and son of Led Zeppelin’s drummer, John Bonham.)

Emily tries to accompany Chris on this wild ride, but she is almost immediately sidelined by Steel Dragon’s louche manager, Mats (Spall), and vampish PR maven, Tania (Dagmara Dominczyk), both of whom are skilled at corralling wives and girlfriends so that the guys are free to do their job. What exactly is their job? As one member of Steel Dragon explains to Chris, it’s to “live the fantasy” for the men who buy Steel Dragon records and dream of being one of them, just as Chris used to do.

The best parts of Rock Star are in the first half, when Chris is the ultimate fanboy on the outside looking in. Wahlberg brings the same winning innocence to the role that he displayed to such advantage in Boogie Nights, and his scenes with those who don’t share his commitment to Steel Dragon, like his older brother, Joe (Matthew Glave), and eventually his bandmates, are both funny and touching. The problem comes when Chris is exposed to the temptations of money, fame and hordes of willing women, which is when all that innocence should crumble away and he should lose Emily forever. But Herek wants us to believe that Chris remains a naif at heart, despite all the months of sex, drugs and rock ‘n’ roll, so that the film can still have an upbeat ending. Indeed, in his commentary, Herek frankly acknowledges cutting certain scenes of indulgence that he thought made Chris seem “unlikeable”—but isn’t that the essence of “the dream” he’s supposed to be living, namely, doing whatever you want and not caring about the consequences, as long as it doesn’t interfere with your ability to get up on stage and scream out the lyrics on cue?

Herek was the wrong director for a film about the world of heavy metal; as he says himself, he’s a somwhat buttondown personality. The subject needed a director who understands and enjoys the temptations of decadence. Herek gathers thousands of extras to stage an authentic concert sequence, but he never manages to capture the electricity of performing before such a crowd. He fills the frame with trampy women and naked flesh, but there’s no temptation or allure. The only element of the Steel Dragon world that has anything close to sexual tension is Dagmara Dominczyk’s Tania, who turns out to be a prankster, because she’s simply “playing” Chris for the sake of the band’s image. The scene in which Chris discovers that Tania isn’t available to him is supposed to be a shocker, but in typical fashion Herek handles it with such restraint that many viewers may not realize anything important has happened. In a movie entitled Rock Star, restraint is not the quality you want in a director.

Rock Star Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Whatever its shortcomings as a film, Rock Star looks pretty good on Warner's 1080p, AVC-encoded Blu-ray, aided by the fantasy sheen that cinematographer Ueli Steiger has cast over the entire film. Steiger's résumé is filled with cheerful comedies like Bowfinger, but he also shot three big-budget extravaganzas for Roland Emmerich. Whatever the subject, he knows how to make it look pretty, so that even Chris Coles's blue-collar home and cheesy rehearsal space for his tribute band look warm and inviting.

The Blu-ray image is detailed and film-like, with no obvious signs of filtering or sharpening. The image is slightly softer than we would be likely to see in a contemporary release originated digitally or where post-production occurred on a digital intermediate, but this may be inherent to the source. The blacks are solid and stable, which is essential during the concert scenes, and the color palette once Chris joins Steel Dragon pops with intense, saturated hues; in his earlier, ordinary life, the colors are milder and more earth-toned.

At an average bitrate of 19.12 Mbps (using a BD-25), Warner is pushing it with a film that involves some extremely active and complicated scenes involving crowds and other large groups of people, all in motion, but I didn't see any compression artifacts. Screens larger than 72" may be less forgiving.

Rock Star Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rock Star's original 5.1 soundtrack is presented in lossless DTS-MA HD, and it's all about the music. The transitions between Wahlberg's own singing and those of the various metal singers (primarily Miljenko Matijevic of Steelheart) who dubbed his performance, have been carefully managed to be convincing, and the concert performances have been mixed to recreate, as much as possible, the sound of a large performance space, including the pyrotehnics. To protect the film audience from hearing loss, the highs have been rolled off a bit, but the low end remains quite strong. If you turn up the volume and your system has the requisite hardware, you should feel the performance.

Other surroundings (bars, buses, parking lots, hotels, Kirk Cuddy's L.A. mansion, etc.) have appropriate ambient noise. Dialogue is clear, and you may even notice some of Trevor Rabin's original score in between the Steel Dragon songs and the period selections by AC/DC, Def Leppard and, just for variety, Culture Club, Talking Heads and Frankie Goes to Hollywood, whose "Relax" so perfectly captures the spirit that Rock Star misses. (Check out how Brian De Palma used it in Body Double.)

Rock Star Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• Commentary by Director Stephen Herek: Herek provides an easygoing, diverting commentary filled with interesting trivia about the production, including which shots were filmed in Los Angeles, with judicious use of CG to insert Pittsburgh backgrounds, and which members of different bands experienced initial friction. He also describes the extensive cooperation he received from various members of the heavy metal community and his efforts to capture the feel of the live concert experience. He is frank about being straitlaced and about cutting back on various scenes to prevent Wahlberg's character from becoming "unlikeable".



• Rock Star: A Backstage Look at a Legend (480i; 1.33:1; 4:04): A brief EPK-style featurette with much flashier editing than the feature.



• Everclear Rock Star Music Video (480i; 1.33:1; 3:45).



• Theatrical Trailer (480i; 1.78:1, enhanced; 2:24): The use of Traffic's "Dear Mr. Fantasy" is a revealing choice, because the musical style—indeed, the environment in which the song was released—is almost the antithesis of the film's heavy metal milieu.

Rock Star Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Warning: The truly spoiler-sensitive should skip this conclusion, because I'm going to talk about the end of the film. However, if you can't see the end coming from a mile away, you need to see more movies.

The real fairy tale in Rock Star isn't being chosen to lead the band you've spent your whole life trying to emulate. It's having that dream fulfilled, plunging into a forbidden world of indulgence where the public applauds and women line up to adore and indulge your sexual fantasies, then emerging unscathed, undamaged, unknown, with zero liability and apparently uninfected, only to find that the life and people you left behind are still there waiting for you. Now that is a beautiful fantasy, but the film doesn't "earn" its ending, because it never shows Chris really succumbing to the reality of rock stardom. Even when he's onstage performing with Steel Dragon, he's still just a fan playing dress-up. Recommended as a Blu-ray if the film is one of your guilty pleasures (we all have them), but certainly not a blind buy.