Looking for Comedy in the Muslim World: Levinson’s Afghan Exploration Prizes Diversion

After a unique pit stop in found footage horror with 2012’s The Bay and an underrated Philip Roth adaptation in 2014 with The Humbling, Barry Levinson returns to his particular predilection for boundary pushing, politically topical subject matters in Rock the Kasbah. It’s a very loosely based version of the true account of Setara Hussainzada, a woman who sang on national television in Afghanistan’s version of “American Idol,” known as “Afghan Star,” even though it’s illegal for women to sing.

More along the lines of Levinson’s Man of the Year (2006) than Wag the Dog (1997), as scripted by Mitch Glazer (his first excursion since 2010’s appalling Passion Play), the title seems as woefully out-of-touch as it is unwarranted. Oddly unsympathetic, even as it depicts a subversive act of rebellion within a ruthlessly patriarchal and misogynistic culture,...