Review: 'Rock The Kasbah' Starring Bill Murray, Kate Hudson, Zooey Deschanel, More

Bill Murray brings progressiveness and peace to the Middle East in “Rock the Kasbah,” a dismally sloppy affair that wrongly assumes it can coast by on the charm of its star. Barry Levinson’s fish-out-of-water saga seems to have been processed through an editorial meat grinder, as it features subplots that are dropped at random, characters who disappear before their narrative threads have received even a cursory conclusion, and a raft of dilemmas that are resolved in the quickest, most disingenuously easy way possible. Rarely has a mainstream comedy boasting this much talent been so structurally amateurish, to the point that the film’s lack of humor seems a secondary problem to its more pressing storytelling incoherence.

READ MORE: Bill Murray Singing "Smoke On The Water" In Soundtrack Preview For 'Rock The Kasbah'

Levinson’s tale involves Richie Lanz (Murray), a music manager operating out of a Van Nuys, California motel, who bilks delusional would-be artists out of...