Bill Murray and Kate Hudson in Rock the Kasbah (Kerry Brown/Open Road)

Rock the Kasbah is an intermittently funny, frequently tedious slog burdened with a mediocre script that leaves some heavy lifting to a stellar cast and a first-rate director. Without Barry Levinson at the helm and Bill Murray at its center, it would have collapsed due to its lazy, haphazard plotting and annoying “this is my motivation and why I’m here” exposition.

The film is extraordinarily loosely based on the true story of Setara Hussainzada, a young woman who sang and danced on the Afghan singing competition TV show Afghan Star in such a way that enraged the more conservative portion of the nation. (She was also profiled in the 2009 documentary Afghan Star.)

Rock the Kasbah pulls a Mississippi Burning and drops a white guy, down on his luck talent manager Richie Lanz (Murray), into the mix and makes the story about his personal growth while everyone else stays in the background. So, it’s mostly about a dude who has a life crisis and inadvertently brings a war-torn nation together.

The movie starts out with a bang as Lanz realizes he may be able to make some cash bringing a just-talented-enough singer (Zooey Deschanel) on a U.S.O. tour to Afghanistan. She bugs out with his cash and passport soon after they arrive, and Lanz is stuck in Afghanistan with no way home. After some misadventure, he discovers Salima, a Pashtun village girl singing Cat Stevens in a cave, and his killer instinct kicks in, and he decides to manage her, at all costs. For the first half hour, you feel you are in safe hands, as Levinson seems to be in a Wag the Dog type of mood. Just when he gets you ready for some frisky politically on-point satire, he drops most of it and settles for sanctimonious sentimentality as the script drops characters and subplots left and right. Eventually, the film gets back on track in the final third and in the surprisingly emotional finale. But by then our enthusiasm has soured considerably.

As it is, it could have been worse. Murray has dusted off his snarky 1980’s persona, and he walks through the film with a bemused gives-just-enough-of-a-fuck-but-not-one-whit-more attitude. It’s good to see that guy back. In fact, all the actors give it their all. Kate Hudson adds depth to a hooker with a heart of gold (seriously, what decade are we in?), Danny McBride and Scott Caan are a riot as good ol’ boys–turned–extremely shady gun runners, and Deschanel cameos as a really not very good karaoke singer. Bruce Willis can do nothing with his wisp of a character, but he certainly is not to blame. Additionally, Leem Lubany leaves a strong impression as the determined young singer that Murray’s character shepherds to television fame.

All in all, Rock the Casbah is a film chock-full of talent working at the top of their game on material not worthy of their time and, unfortunately, our interest.