Rock Star movie review & film summary (2001)

Wahlberg plays Chris ''Izzy'' Coles, a Pittsburgh office supplies salesman who sings in the church choir, loves and is loved by his parents and a loyal girlfriend, and leads a local tribute band named Blood Pollution. He idolizes the band Steel Dragon, and insists that his band do only their songs, and only in the exact way they perform them (''You're not nailing the squeal,'' he tells a guitarist during rehearsal). Eventually his fanaticism makes him such a nuisance that his own band fires him.

Miraculously, the lead singer of Steel Dragon is in the process of being kicked out, and the band sees one of Izzy's tapes and hires him as a replacement singer.

This is all loosely inspired by fact. An Ohio office supply salesman named Tim ''Ripper'' Owens actually did replace Rob Halford, the lead singer in Judas Priest, after warming up as lead singer in a tribute band. Most of the film's other details are, I imagine, fiction--but they portray a world which must be more or less the same for many bands, involving the ordeal of touring, personality clashes, the danger of violence, unhappy relationships, omnipresent groupies, and managers who must be liars, thieves, drug counselors and psychoanalysts, to keep the show on the road.

The best parts of the movie are the early ones, as Izzy fights with his band, stands by his dream, and is supported by his girlfriend Emily (Jennifer Aniston), who at one point goes beyond the call of duty by piercing his nipple so he can wear a ring just like his idol Bobby Beers, the lead singer in Steel Dragon. One of the funniest scenes in the movie involves what appears to be a fight with a cop who breaks into Izzy's bedroom; I won't spoil the punch-line.

The members of Steel Dragon are revealed, behind the scenes, to be cynical professionals who casually boot out Bobby Beers, see a tape of Izzy performing, fly him to L.A. for an audition, and hire him. Izzy brings Emily along (''we traded in the first class ticket for two tourist tickets''), and indeed plans on keeping her by his side during the whole adventure. This is not the way the tour works, and Emily is banned from the band bus; she and the other wives and girlfriends trail behind in a stretch limousine, although an astrologer and a drag queen are allowed on the bus.