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The Rocker

Rain Wilson, Christina Applegate

He was considered by many female fans to be the best looking Beatle. “Paul?” No. “John?” No. “George?” Not a chance and I am not going to pretend that Ringo was in the running. Have you seen the nose on that guy? Answer: Pete Best. Never heard of him? That is why it sucks to be Pete Best, the Wally Pipp of rock-n-roll. Before Ringo Starr kept the beat, Pete was the band drummer. He got fired and shortly afterwards the band exploded, becoming an international sensation. After two years of playing with the boys, he was simply told by Brian Epstein, the band’s manager, that, "The lads don't want you in the group anymore." Even though fans greeted Best’s replacement with signs proclaiming “Ringo never, Pete Best forever!” and one supporter even showed his distain for the decision by head butting George. It did not matter, Best was history. After locking himself in his room for two weeks, he tried to make the best of it, joining Lee Curtis & the All Stars and later building a band around himself called The Pete Best Four. Yet, his rock-n-roll dreams never came true and soon he was loading bread into delivery vans, barely making ends meet, and sweet talking a girl behind the biscuit counter at the Woolworth’s. Think your life is horrible? Just try to imagine what it would be like to be the answer to a future Trivial Pursuit question involving being the world’s biggest loser. Walk past any newsstand on your way to work and there they are. Flip on the television, stop in a record store, and it is all Beatles all the time. Millions of dollars in the banks, countless fans, talk about how they changed culture and you smell like fresh bread. Is it any wonder that Pete thought about killing himself.

Most near misses and almost was’es like Patrick McGoohan who turned down the role of James Bond in Dr. No or the dozens of Cardinals like Mariano Rampolla del Tindaro, who almost became Pope, are kindly forgotten by history, but not Pete Best In turn, who could not root for Best to become a rock-n-roll god, or even grow into his 70s. It is easy to identify with the former Beatle who just missed the golden ring and the only thing hard to believe is some studio has taken the raw bones of Pete’s story for a movie. Any doubt that the writers of The Rocker were not channeling a fantasy happy ending for the Best story is quickly dispelled by a cameo in the film by the most famous bread truck loader in the history of Liverpool.

Similarly, there is something about Rainn Wilson that a person cannot help but like. Emboldened by the Internet, being a nerd has become cool. Everyone, because the teenage years are awkward, likes to consider him or herself such. What used to get a person beat up is now displayed with pride. Rainn in his role of Dwight Schrute in the American version of the television comedy “The Office” is the spiritual father of nerdhood. In real life, Wilson might be a hip art collector, but in an industry built on six pack abs, plastic surgery, and physical beauty, he looks like someone who should be standing in line for Warren Ellis’s autograph at Comic-Con in a Dr. Who t-shirt a couple sizes too small. You might want to sleep with a Daniel Craig or a Salma Hayek, but if you have an X-Box and a pizza, Rainn Wilson is the dude you wish you had on speed dial. Even though he has sprung past Harold Green, Milhouse and Steven Urkel as the small screen’s most famous geek, Wilson finds himself in the same position as Tom Hanks just off of “Bosom Buddies,” Jim Carrey in “In Living Color,” and George Clooney in “E.R.” He has to prove he has box office muscle, that people are willing to pay their hard earned money to see him. This is especially true for Wilson, who might have trouble getting a piece at a leper’s swinger party. That means lesser scripts and lower production values. Translation: The material stinks and The Rocker is no different.

Joining Wilson in his quest for a paycheck is Christina Applegate (Kelly from “Married… With Children”), Will Arnett (G.O.D. in “Arrested Development”), and Howard Hesseman (Johnny Fever in “W.K.R.P. in Cincinnati”). For the teenage girls, singer-songwriter and mop of hair Teddy Geiger is along for good measure. Like a check list, producers had to make sure that there was a little low cost t-and-a for hormone-filled boys, so Emma Stone (Jules in Superbad) jumped the shark to keep her name in lights. With a bad script, PG-13 casting by coloring book, and the summer season coming to an end, what could possibly go wrong, especially because we know before the opening credits roll that Applegate’s incredibly hot character is going to hook up with Robert “Fish” Fishman (Rainn Wilson)?

Like Pete Best, Fish was the original drummer for a super 80s hair band called Vesuvius and just before skyrocketing to the top, enjoying hot and cold running blondes, and being on the cover of Rolling Stone, Fish was out. Two decades later, Fish gets a second chance at fame and making his rock-n-roll dreams come true with a young, up and coming garage band led by his nephew Matt (Josh Gad). A few years ago, this is the type of “comedy” that would have been offered to John Goodman in his King Ralph days. It is hard to believe that it was written by one of the former writers of “The Simpsons” and directed by Peter Cattaneo who has two Academy Award nominations and is most famous for the hilarious British comedy The Full Monty. Yet, any question you have about the quality of the film is answered with producer Shawn Levy in the credits. He is the man responsible for such comedy abortions like Big Fat Liar, Just Married, The Pink Panther (Steve Martin version), and the two Cheaper by the Dozen films. If you think those films are great, this is a movie for you. Will it make money? Yes. Is it good? No. Does it matter? No. The kids are going back to school. Parents are starting to gear up for the fall. Football is about to start. Rainn Wilson will move on to bigger and better movies, probably as a comic sidekick, or he might be this generation’s Kramer, Urkel, The Fonz, or JJ Walker. This movie will not hurt him too much.

On August 16, 1962, Pete Best was fired, replaced by the left-handed Ringo. Without Starr, there would have been no A Hard Day’s Night, Octopus’s Garden or Don’t Pass Me By. Ringo was more than a drummer. His style and innovations influenced generations of future drummers. The Beatles would not have been the cultural force they became without him and it would be impossible to find a music critic alive who would place Best in the same league with Starr. But I am sure that in the mid-1960s that would not have made Pete feel better, especially as he battled to find anyone who would even hire him. Still, Best seems to have had a better private life than his former band mates. For over forty years he has been married to his wife Kathy. Out of this union came two beautiful daughters and a host of grandchildren. Retired from his career as a public servant, in retirement, he plays in a band with his brother Roag. A smile never seems to leave the elderly Beatle’s face. In almost every interview, Best echoes how lucky he is, often stating, “Some people expect me to be bitter and twisted, but I'm not. I feel very fortunate in my life. God knows what strains and stresses The Beatles must have been under. They became a public commodity. And John paid for that with his life.” Not a bad life being surrounded by family and friends who love you. At the end of the day, to quote a Beatles’ song, “All you need is love.” It is a message that this movie tries to communicate and Pete Best understands. It seems kind of funny to say, but maybe Pete Best is the lucky one.

Verdict: A Big Miss