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Steel Dragon

Rock Star
Rock star ver1.jpg
Theatrical release poster
Directed by Stephen Herek
Produced by Robert Lawrence
Toby Jaffe
Written by
Starring Mark Wahlberg
Jennifer Aniston
Jason Flemyng
Timothy Olyphant
Timothy Spall
Dominic West
Music by Trevor Rabin
Cinematography Ueli Steiger
Edited by Trudy Ship
Production
company
Bel Air Entertainment
Maysville
Distributed by Warner Bros. (US)
Studiocanal (International)
Release date
  • September 7, 2001 (2001-09-07)
Running time
105 minutes
Country United States
Language English
Budget $38–57 million
Box office $19.3 million
Rock Star
Soundtrack album by Various Artists
Released August 28, 2001
Label Priority
Professional ratings
Review scores
Source Rating
AllMusic 2.5/5 stars

Rock Star is a 2001 American musical comedy-drama film directed by Stephen Herek and starring Mark Wahlberg and Jennifer Aniston. It tells the story of Chris "Izzy" Cole, a tribute band singer whose ascendance to the position of lead vocalist of his favorite band was inspired by the real-life story of Tim "Ripper" Owens, singer in a Judas Priest tribute band who was chosen to replace singer Rob Halford when he left the band.

Chris Cole (Mark Wahlberg) is a Pittsburgh fanatical admirer of a 1980s heavy metal band called Steel Dragon. By day, Chris is a technician and by night, he is the lead singer of a Steel Dragon tribute band called Blood Pollution (the name is taken from a Steel Dragon song).

Internal struggles among the actual Steel Dragon band members culminate with the firing of their lead singer, Bobby Beers (Jason Flemyng), and the starting of recruitment sessions to find a new vocalist. Chris experiences his own strife with his Blood Pollution bandmates, particularly guitarist Rob Malcolm (Timothy Olyphant). During a live performance, Rob's playing fails to live up to Chris' over-demanding standards regarding note-for-note accuracy to the original Steel Dragon recordings, and Chris sabotages Rob's amplifier mid-song - a fight breaks out between the two onstage. The next day, Chris arrives at Blood Pollution's rehearsal space (the basement of an X-rated theater) to find that he's been fired and replaced with his arch-rival, the (now former) lead singer of another Steel Dragon tribute band. Rob also cites Chris' inability to create his own musical style, preferring to remain the singer in a tribute band.

One day in 1984, Chris receives an unexpected phone call from Steel Dragon's founder and rhythm guitarist, Kirk Cuddy (Dominic West), and is offered an audition for the band (thanks to two of Blood Pollution's groupies, who showed Kirk a videotape of one of Blood Pollution's concerts). After hanging up on Kirk once, thinking he's being made fun of, Chris ecstatically agrees. At the studio, he meets the band, as well as learning that Bobby Beers was fired because he was a closeted gay, and gives an outstanding performance of "We All Die Young" (a Steel Dragon song in the movie, but it is actually a song by Steelheart, whose lead vocalist Miljenko Matijevic provides Cole's singing voice for the film). Chris joins the band as their new singer, adopting the stage name "Izzy". Following a successful debut concert with Steel Dragon, Izzy must come to grips with the pressures of his new-found fame and success. The band embarks on a lengthy tour and Izzy experiences the excesses of the lifestyle, with the group's manager, Mats (Timothy Spall), serving as a sympathetic mentor to Izzy.


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