IAHHM’s Take is our informed review of a widely discussed release, built on the film’s verified details and what critics are saying.
A festival as big as Rolling Loud was always going to get a movie. What nobody saw coming was that it’d be an R-rated dad comedy starring Owen Wilson. Rolling Loud: The Movie hit theaters Friday, Oct. 2, and early reviews are all over the place.
The Details
- Director: Jeremy Garelick
- Cast: Owen Wilson, Christian Convery, Matt Rife, Christine Ko, Jolene Blalock, Olivia Luccardi, Henry Winkler
- Artist appearances: Travis Scott, Sexyy Red, Ty Dolla $ign
- Runtime: 1 hour 35 minutes
- Rated: R (sexual material, drug use, language throughout, graphic nudity)
- Distributor: Ketchup Entertainment
- Where to watch: In theaters now
The Story (and the True Story Behind It)
Wilson plays Hank Goldstone, an out-of-touch suburban dad who makes a bad call: he takes his 13-year-old son Xion (Convery) to Rolling Loud in Miami without Mom’s permission. From there it turns into a chase through crowds and security with his reckless co-worker Terry (Rife) and an eccentric festival volunteer.
The setup is based on real life. In 2022, Garelick took his then-13-year-old son Zion to Rolling Loud and briefly lost him in the crowd. Zion even made a PowerPoint to convince his parents to let him go, and that deck shows up in the movie almost slide for slide. He shares a “Story By” credit with his dad. (CinemaBlend)
A lot of it was shot at the actual festival. Rolling Loud co-founder and CEO Matt Zingler said Wilson performed “FE!N” with Travis Scott during filming after learning the song in Zingler’s trailer, and Zingler pops up himself as a Ferris wheel operator named Cletus. (AOL)
What Critics Are Saying
It’s opening weekend, so the aggregate scores aren’t in yet. As of Saturday morning, Rotten Tomatoes had no Tomatometer score posted and Metacritic listed its Metascore as pending. The reviews that are out split hard:
- The Hollywood Reporter (Frank Scheck) says the movie “comes across as tone-deaf.” (THR)
- Peter Travers called it “a misbegotten misfire,” adding “funny, it’s not.” (via Metacritic)
- UPI (Fred Topel) is friendlier, calling it an amusing weekend diversion with real festival production value and good-natured jokes at the expense of concert culture: “The formula still works so it doesn’t have to be the best to still be fun.” (UPI)
- Screen Rant headlined its review “Better Than It Has Any Right To Be.” (Screen Rant)
IAHHM’s Take
Here’s how we see it. This isn’t a hip hop movie. It’s a fish-out-of-water comedy that happens to be set at a hip hop festival, and the jokes are mostly aimed at the dad who doesn’t get it and the fans who take it all too seriously. If you came up on Rolling Loud, that’s either funny or annoying depending on how much you can laugh at yourself.
The strongest thing it has going for it is that it’s real. Shooting at the actual festival with real crowds, real stages and real artists gives it a look most fake-concert movies never get. And the idea of Owen Wilson, of all people, learning “FE!N” to hit the stage with Travis Scott is exactly the kind of moment that travels on social.
The weak spots line up with what even the kinder reviews point out: the drug humor is the same stuff we’ve seen in a dozen party comedies, and it’s not as wild as the R rating makes it sound. The “tone-deaf” complaint will land with some of you too. A movie about rap culture made from the outside looking in is going to make some heads cringe.
The Verdict
Matinee, not a must. A light, disposable comedy with a real-festival hook and a few cameo moments worth seeing on a big screen. Don’t go in expecting a love letter to the culture.
Watch it if… you’ve been to Rolling Loud (or argued with your parents about going), you want an easy group laugh this weekend, or you just want to see how Owen Wilson holds up in a Rolling Loud crowd.
Sources
- Rotten Tomatoes: Rolling Loud: The Movie
- Metacritic: Rolling Loud
- The Hollywood Reporter review
- UPI review
- Screen Rant review
- CinemaBlend: Why a teenage boy has a story credit
- AOL: Rolling Loud CEO talks the movie
