Esperando al rey

The name Tom Hanks is synonymous with big budget non-CGI films with good acting. "A Hologram for the King" from 2016 stars Hanks, has some beautiful scenery, but really no point that I could see. It was based on a successful novel, and I suppose someone thought it would make a good movie.

Hanks is divorced businessman Alan Clay, who goes to Saudi Arabia to seal a deal - the company he works for wants to sell a holographic teleconferencing system for a new city being built in the desert, and he is to give a demonstration to the King. He's in a financial crunch; his daughter hasn't been able to attend college, though she doesn't mind delaying it.

When he arrives in Saudi Arabia, he runs into delays - the King isn't in town, and no one knows when he's supposed to show up. Clay's team is housed in a tent with poor wi-fi and has to bring food from the hotel. He can't get any answers from anybody about anything.

During the time he is there, he connects with his driver Yousef (Alexander Black) and also meets a female doctor (Sarita Choudhury), who treats a large cyst in his back.

The rest of the time he drinks like a fish, almost becomes involved with a Danish contractor named Hanne (Sidse Babett Knudsen), and goes on a hunt for wolves disturbing a flock of sheep with Yousef.

Finally, he does meet with his point person there, and his team has food, air conditioning, and wi-fi. But there is so little time spent on the reason he's there in the film, it doesn't matter to the viewer.

I guess this was supposed to be a story of Americans doing business or being in another culture, but this culture isn't even correctly represented. His involvement with a married female doctor is impossible, as is her presence alone with him in his hotel room.

The story has some holes, including that the Hanks character is staying in Jeddah, but is told that the person he wants to see isn't in town -he's in Jeddah. Hello?

This is a script that forgot what it was about, whatever it was about. For some reason the book was well-received. Didn't make a good film, even if it did star Tom Hanks.

Not every comedy is for everyone (at least I think this was supposed to be a comedy). Last week I saw The Big Lebowski (1998) at the local movie theater. Packed. People in Lebowski t-shirts, people who raised hands to show they'd seen the movie five, ten, twenty times, people anticipating the laugh lines. Eighteen years from now, nothing like that will happen with this film from German director Tom Twyker. Tom Hanks is American businessman Alan Clay, whose marriage is over and whose career as a salesman is on the skids. In what appears to be a last chance at success, he's sent to Saudi Arabia to sell the king on a costly holographic teleconferencing system for a new city being built in the desert. He encounters bureaucratic delays, clandestine alcohol consumption, confounding cultural gaps, and unexpected romance. Where I messed up was in thinking, "Oh, Tom Hanks. He's always great." Someone so talented just wouldn't be in a mediocre film. Why would he? And, I thought, "Oh, Dave Eggers wrote the book it's based on. Got lots of praise for it too." For example, New York Times reviewer Pico Iyer called the book "an anguished investigation into how and where American self-confidence got lost and — in the central word another lonely expat uses for Alan— 'defeated.'" And the Boston Globe: "True genius." Someplace along the way, the promise of the book and Hanks got lost, and a more disjointed and implausible narrative is hard to imagine. When we're told that the crowds Hanks saw at a mosque were there because "that's where the executions are," it's hard to believe that a Saudi woman would take the very great risk of being alone with him, an American infidel. Hanks does get to drive a very sexy 2015 Audi R8, briefly. But even that isn't worth the ticket price.

Good entertainment but Halaam not reflecting the real Saudi people &culture. Even though some of the characteristics and incidents are well performed, it's for the sake of performance without meaning and I found it uncomfortable. Making sure no bomb each time before starting engine? Massive disco party in Danish Embassy ? Female Muslim doctor checking foreigner? Taxi driver with desire of democratic movement...... What? Where is the beautiful Isramic spirit of giving and welcoming? Not a single scene... Directors must have had unwilling bitter personal experiences in Saudi / with Arabic people.

It's American film for American people. I am very well convinced that most of the scenes were filmed in Morrocco, not in Saudi.

I found this movie on Netflix and came to it without any expectations, having read no reviews beforehand. I wondered what Tom Hanks was up to now. Unlike many viewers, I don't see why every TH movie has to be a "hit". I found the Saudi Arabian locale and characters fascinating, wondering how they manage to build such opulent structures in a desert. To continue the holographic metaphor, the projected new-city-in-the-desert was more of a mirage than a reality.

I understand why critics at Rotten Tomatoes give it a 73% fresh rating: it is different and critics like that. Only 55% of the audience at RT enjoyed it because they were expecting something different, and audiences don't like that. As other reviewers have mentioned, the plot meanders and goes in odd directions. But that is part of the quirky attraction for me, at least. While the story ends a bit abruptly (too nicely/neatly?), Tom Hank's character is a sympathetic one that the audience willingly roots for.

I am not sure what I was expecting from this movie going in. Now that I have seen it, I am glad that my expectations were tempered. This movie lacked the traditional intensity that a Tom Hanks film usually delivers. I can't put my finger on just what I didn't like about the film. Was it the fact that this movie couldn't decide if it was a love story, or a comedy? Or that the underdevelopment of the characters left me scratching my head. Or that the storytelling seemed rushed in slow moving manner. In any case, I was disappointed in this movie when I walked out of the theater. I was a little surprised that Hanks even took this role after reading the script. This movie was beneath his talent. Anybody could have played the part and done just as well.