The Rocker

Directed by Peter Cattaneo, The Rocker is more or less the Pete Best story — the tale of a poor bastard who gets shitcanned right on the brink record-bin immortality. The film opens in Cleveland, mid-1980s, where Rainn Wilson's Robert "Fish" Fishman is behind the kit for Vesuvius, a metal band fronted by three head-bobbing, hair-waving morons (Will Arnett, Fred Armisen and Bradley Cooper) whose loyalty extends only to the dotted line. Told to either ditch their drummer or lose a deal with a record label, they choose the former, sending Fish into a tailspin from which he never recovers. Until decades later, that is, when he falls in with A.D.D., the high school band for which his portly, pale nephew (Josh Gad) plays keyboard. A juvenile fairy tale that plays like the pilot for a Jonas Brothers sitcom on the Disney Channel, The Rocker comes off as something penned by an old dude who hasn't bought music since it was sold on records.