Sommerleigh Pollonais, Senior Writer
Plot: A CIA operative and his translator flee from special forces in Afghanistan after exposing a covert mission.
Review: Most actors and actresses have a “thing” they’re known for, right? Tom Cruise runs in almost all his movies, Tom Hanks seems to have an ongoing bladder issue because he urinates in all his (seriously, go look it up!). Brad Pitt is eternally hungry. And Nicolas Cage is our gift from the gods of awesomeness. Yes, they all seem to find their niche and the same goes for Gerard Butler who seems to have found his sweet spot with roles as the haggard-looking everyman who finds himself in dangerous situations. And love him or leave him, for the most part this works, as once again proven in the surprisingly good film Kandahar.
Now before you leave this review saying I lied to you, Kandahar is not your typical Gerard Butler movie. Unlike his Something has Fallen series of movies, or his most recent hit Greenland, this movie takes its time getting off the ground, and for some viewers that can be a non-starter. Butler plays a CIA operative named Tom Harris who works in Iran to dismantle their nuclear program by any means necessary. On his way home to his daughter’s graduation he gets a call from his handler Roman (Travis Fimmel of Vikings, Raised by Wolves) about one last job in which he has to join up with a translator named Mohammed (Navid Negahban) to destroy an airstrip. When their cover is blown, however, Tom and Mohammed have to race across the deserts of Iran to the city of Kandahar, Afghanistan where an extraction team will wait for only 30 hours. But with everyone including the Taliban, Iranian police, ISIS and Santa Claus himself (I’m kidding about that last one) chasing them, time quickly runs down as these two men have nothing but each other to rely on in hopes of making it home to their families safely.
I’m sure there’s a lot of geopolitical stuff being said here and the performances by leads Butler and Negahban do a lot to make themes of, “When it comes to war, no one thinks they’re the bad guy” hit home. But to be honest, these moments didn’t stick with me the way I think writer Mitchell LaFortune may have wanted them to. What I found engaging here was the pacing and tension built up as this story rolled to its conclusion.
What starts off as a slow and somewhat boring tale of espionage takes a turn in the second half as the chase begins, which is also where Butler comes to life as the grizzled yet believable CIA operative who knows how to keep calm under extreme pressure. Negahban works well as the innocent translator caught up in this world of lies and corruption and I appreciated this movie’s choice to show all sides to this conflict. A great example of this would be Bahador Foladi who plays a police officer/soldier who’s only trying to do his job in capturing the two men. They could’ve easily made him into a stereotypical Middle Eastern “villain” but instead what we got was a quick but fleshed out look at this man as a father, husband and patriot trying to do the right thing in a complicated world.
That said, the deeper aspects of this movie aren’t fully fleshed out and get tossed aside for more actions sequences and I would be a hypocrite if I said the latter wasn’t more engaging. Kandahar might not be a perfect movie, but there was a lot of effort put into it. From the cinematography to the sympathetic characters and action sequences that feel right out of a Mission Impossible movie, I can forgive a lot when I’m having fun, and I had fun with this one.
Sommer’s Score: 6.5 out of 10
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Sommerleigh of the House Pollonais. First of Her Name. Sushi Lover, Queen of Horror Movies, Comic Books and Binge-Watching Netflix. Mother of two beautiful black cats named Vader and Kylo. I think eating Popcorn at the movies should be mandatory, PS4 makes the best games ever, and I’ll be talking about movies until the zombie apocalypse comes.Double Tap Baby! Read More