‘Kandahar’ Review: Gerald Butler Loses His Way in Plodding, Overly Serious Thriller
If it’s true that an empty wagon makes a lot of noise, then “Kandahar” is the most deafening movie of the year thus far. A complicated but undercooked thriller about an MI6 operative (Gerard Butler) and his Afghan translator (Navid Negahban) stranded behind enemy lines, the movie peaks early — meaning the first 10 minutes — when Tom, the secret agent, covertly blows up an underground nuclear reactor in Iran.
The mission completed, Tom prepares to head home to attend his daughter’s graduation, even though he and his wife have already agreed to an amicable divorce (“The job dictates everything,” he tells her during the same phone conversation in which he promises not to miss the event.)
More from Variety
Juliette Lewis and 'Chasing Mavericks' star Jonny Weston Set to Star in Indie 'Kelly and Cal'
Veteran Actors Like Gerald McRaney Are Flexing Their Thespian Muscles
But after his flight is delayed, Tom can’t resist a call from a contact (Travis Fimmel) who offers him a quick, high-paying gig for the CIA in Afghanistan that will take three days tops — plenty of time for him to still make that commencement ceremony.
The savvy, veteran Tom is weirdly relaxed about the intense manhunt spanning several countries for the culprit behind the nuclear explosion. He’s also unaware that a reporter (Nina Toussaint-White) has blown his cover and that Iran, the Taliban and a Pakistani assassin (Ali Fazal) are all on his trail.
Screenwriter Mitchell LaFortune, who served several tours of duty in the Middle East for the Defense Intelligence Agency, is careful to set up his premise with plenty of insider details — so many that the movie takes 45 minutes of exposition just to get started. LaFortune’s commitment to depicting multiple sides of view of the same story is commendable. But his skill at intertwining his veteran knowledge with dramatic vigor is not.
That daunting info dump proves to be unnecessary, since “Kandahar” gradually devolves into a run-for-the-border chase picture, with Tom and Mo — the translator who has his own beef with the Taliban — racing to catch a plane out of Afghanistan and avoid multiple killers.
“Plane,” coincidentally, was the title of Butler’s previous film, released in January, a fun B-movie with no delusions of grandeur and a flair for preposterous hijinks. In that one, Butler embraced his inner Liam- Neeson-in-action-mode spirit, the approach that has served him best after “300.”
In “Kandahar,” though, Butler is aiming for something deeper. The movie marks the third collaboration between the actor and director Ric Roman Waugh (after “Angel Has Fallen” and “Greenland”) but this one takes itself a lot more seriously than the previous films, and one of those depicted the end of the world.
“Kandahar” wants to be “Syriana” with car chases, but it only achieves the latter, and you’ve seen them done better. The movie’s attempt to give voice to the ordinary people of Middle Eastern and Asian countries involved is admirable. But it’s all at the service of a film that, for all its surface complexity, has characters who spout lines such as “This is bigger than Snowden and Wikileaks combined!” There’s no point in explaining things loud enough for the people in the back row when they’re all asleep.
Best of Variety
Sign up for Variety’s Newsletter. For the latest news, follow us on Facebook, Twitter, and Instagram.
