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Murray plays Richie Lanz, whose best years are behind him.
When he takes his last client to Afghanistan to perform for U.S.
soldiers and gets dumped, a twist of fate sees him meet Pashtun
girl Salima Khan with a beautiful voice.
They travel across the war-torn country as Lanz tries to help
Khan, played by Leem Lubany, fulfill her dream of becoming the
first woman to compete on Afghanistan's version of music talent
show "American Idol".
"I haven't felt this way about a movie in a very long time,"
Murray said at the film's premiere on Monday.
"You sort of use this comedy as your way into maybe a deeper
subject matter. The comedy has to stay the course, it has to go
all the way through and you have to be able to be funny when
things get dark and most challenging."
The movie also stars Bruce Willis as a ruthless mercenary and
Kate Hudson as a savvy prostitute.
"The idea of making the story right was going to be determined
by the people about whom we were speaking, people from both
Afghanistan and the Muslim world," Murray said.
"And those people seem to think that not only is it very
successful on a human level, that it's respectful but it's
entertaining too."
Oscar-winning director Barry Levinson said he likes to use
comedy to address more serious issues.
"I always think it's an interesting way to go about it as
opposed to just being a serious film," he said. "Sometimes
behavior and real kind of humanistic behavior has the tendency
to have humor mixed in with its more dramatic moments."
"Rock the Kasbah" hits U.S. cinemas on Friday.
(Reporting by Elly Park in New York; Writing by Marie-Louise
Gumuchian in London; Editing by Louise Ireland)
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