Rock of ages: Shed inhibitions, romp


Rock of ages
Starring: Tom Cruise, Alec Baldwin, Catherine Zeta-Jones
At: PVR
Rated: 8/10
It is quite another kind of starkness, this one! Propelled by the king of rock Stacy Jaxx who is America’s most unabashed bare-stopped slave of rock music, this one redefines gay abandon in as much detail as it does commitment to collective debauchery.
For one, Jaxx is a complete crowd puller whose self indulgent to the power of infinity. He can pee on the boots of his unscrupulous manager the same way as he sings on stage swaying away any kind of guilt you might have felt in following this completely satanic star singer and the more his music propagates to a shocked yet surrendering society.
Why guilt? Because who in her senses would worship a man whose tongue keeps going into all kinds of unimaginable places as he enslaves even his staunchest women critics, whose nipple is so swollen that you might want to rub in a little diuretic. His  chest adornment would put your boldest tatoo to shame.
For Tom Cruise to have worn this delightfully sick character with so much gravitas speaks well of his acting acumen. Though most of the film is centred around the stinking culture that Cruise propels, you do find pathos in his vulnerability to loneliness, his sapping of energies and his emptied out creative skills due to constant exposure to a lifestyle that is difficult to humanly sustain.
The film, an ode to the age of rock brings out a medley of nostalgic songs sung not just by the indomitable Jaxx but also through a youthful and fresh pair thoroughly in love. The lampooned rap music which was to soon follow the age of Jaxx has been also delightfully caricatured as has the committed anti-rocker in Catherine Zeta Jones.
As you settle your shocked nerves and fight to not fall at the feet of Jaxx, you realise how engrossing the film is despite the bare chested, crotch settling Jaxx who lives in thonged pants and nothing more. Yes, you need to fish him out of the butt of his comfort women many a time, and also indulge in his alter ego the chip, and also sit through him peeing on his manager. But when you are done doing that, and lamenting the end of an American era which kicks propriety in the face, you start enjoying all things bad and sinful. You rock and the movie with you.
Source: Published in The Sunday Pioneer, 17 June, 2012

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