I saw the fabled “Rock On” movie everyone told me I’d like.
I didn’t like it.
What I did find good was that the folks were spot on accurate. The music was nice, the tones were good, and the actors actually were playing what they were playing the notes. One chap even had a Steve Vai signature guitar, which I’ve heard is fabulous. The songs actually had leads, and was the first Hindi movie since 1997 to probably feature real instruments. To top it off, there were no “item numbers”.
I could barely hear the movie over my little sister writhing in pain over how slow the movie is. In a nutshell, it’s about a bunch of people who used to be real good ten years ago, and how they put aside their differences at the end and play again on stage. It’s largely a sob-fest with characters having to make tough decisions, and strain their relationship to just play six minutes on stage.
What irked me the most, however, was the lack of a Bass guitar (even more that the fact that only the bass players in the world will complain). While a bassline can be clearly heard, the lack of a bassist was purely due to lack of the glamour quotient, and to keep the number to 4. The keyboardist, who’s story is prominent rather lacks the presence in the music itself.
Rest assured, the movie clearly stank in my opinion. There was too much sobbing, confusion and backstory than I would’ve liked. School of Rock, for instance, did a flawless job of keeping the backstory and melding it in with the music.
What would’ve made the movie nice was to educate more people about the music and cut down all the “oh god! playing for ten minutes on stage will change all our lives” philosophy.
In a nutshell: “Rock on” is a soap opera with guitars.
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