The film, overlooked slightly during its time and revered as a classic now, has the plot of an underdog achieving his dream, but was it really what he thought it would be? On the way to glory, Jordan lost his family, loved ones and even his true soulmate.
The film starts off with the arrogant and vexed Jordan arriving at a stadium where his concert crowd is reaching a crescendo; barely escaping a fistfight in the streets of Italy as he makes his way to the microphone and strums a rock-metal chord. This energetic reveal to the marvellous location puts the audience in the place to expect something great.
The magnificent locations seen throughout have been a signature style of the director Imtiaz Ali; the film not only takes you on the journey of a struggling musician but also engages you to every character shown in each frame. The visual awe the film puts you in is amazing, be it Chandni Chowk during its peak hours in Delhi or the Svatopluk Cech bridge in Prague during the blue hour. The glorious soundtrack composed by A.R Rahman was demanded by the title and he did nothing short of excelling and elevating the atmosphere for a film.
However, there were a handful of grey areas. The plot goes wrong when our female lead, Heer, gets married, keeping Jordan now as only a friend, and moves to Prague. As fate would have it, when Jordan becomes somewhat famous and goes to Prague for a show, he bumps into Heer. Since the day they meet to the last day of Jordan’s shows, the writers and Jordan try to revive their relationship and back to its former glory. But Heer unexpectedly ends up falling for him and regardless of the character development we’ve seen for our “Rockstar”, they spend many intimate nights together.
This clearly showed the failure of our protagonist to be abstinent and being morally right to be with a married woman. As well as, this follows his descent into alcohol and rage as he continues to tread further into the finished relationship. Jordan always wanted to end up with Heer and it was never possible as she never felt the same for him.
The female lead played by Nargis Fakhri felt like a giant miscast, nor did she act in accordance to her role or her surrounding cast, her role in the film almost felt a terrible drag except a handful of pivotal scenes. Adding on, there was an acclaimed cast of character artists as well as best cinematographers and writers, it feels like a waste of potential; the film did not have any never seen before elements. No originality or well-utilised talent was to be seen. The biggest, glaring flaw was the lack of a conclusion of the script, while done excellently in other pieces of media as a concept, Rockstar’s use of it made it look incomplete.
The screenplay leaves the audience discontented as we are unaware of the couple’s future and left blankly at a wide shot of the crowd chanting Jordan’s name, cutting to the closing credits coupled with a montage of scenes and locations. There is no progression in the film, no net distance travelled in character progression or story, just the backstory and ending at the scene of the crime we began with. On paper, a concept of thrill and wonder and likely to drive a nation wild. As execution, there were many things left to be desired.
By Yash Sahni, AS B
Another Level Higher 