Kandahar

This is an interesting movie, the storyline is pretty normal, CIA operative is exposed and must make it to friendly lines while being hunted by a bunch of evil people.

Its Afghanistan so there are more twists and turns than a roller coaster ride. The usual explosions, killings and destruction you would expect from a thriller movie.

Gerard Butler gives an awesome gritty performance and manages to pull out an otherwise predictable movie and provide the same determination of the "... Has Fallen" movies.

It displays the multiple players in that area of the country. And shows the various players in what is a very complicated part of the world.

Strong plot and promising action but falls short. Worth viewing if you like this type of film or Butler in general.

Butler's 'Tom Harris' and Fimmel's 'Roman' were strong, they provided high points. Bagheri's 'Parshand' didn't hit the mark.

Action scenes had moments of awesome. But odd timing of starts/stops during sequences made them confusing. Particularly when Roman rolls out of the vehicle during a pursuit scene.

Parshand pursuing main characters endlessly through the desert on a low range motorcycle was odd and not believable enough. Character did not seem ruthless. His scenes subtracted from the overall concept I was expecting and hoping for.

On the pro side, the photography was beautiful. There were some gorgeous desert shots, fly-overs of the cars that were enjoyable in their own right. Fight scenes were realistic enough to feel the sense of danger. Even the music was good and kept me wanting to feel empathy for the characters, but here's were the problem was. I couldn't tell if I was supposed to be rooting for the main characters or disappointed that they were making the same mistakes of their past. The whistle-blower reporter, was she a heroine or an ignorant meddler? Did the black-ops group do something bad or good? The medley of Iranian operatives, ISIS, Talaban, and a host of others all had their vague "bad-ness" about them, trying to kill the main character, but then they were just being used as well, so maybe I was supposed to feel badly for them. Am I supposed to feel bad about being the US forces attacking Afganistan? Our calamity of a withdrawal? Or am I just supposed feel like war is a mess of conflicting allegiances and there are no more clear answers any more?

Filmography/editing got this a 6/10 instead of the 5/10 that the writing deserved.

Kandahar is the second action-drama about Afghanistan I've seen in the last month. Guy Ritchie's The Covenant is about the same subject matter. It's different but also very similar. I find it amusing to see the return of very similar movies released in the same year (think Olympus Has Fallen and White House Down). Fortunately, in this case both movies turned out great.

I enjoyed Kandahar and found it entertaining throughout. It has some cool action scenes that seem to emphasize realism. There is an action scene at night which had me complaining at first because I couldn't see much. I wondered why they didn't use some kind of lighting trick. But as I watched, I realized this is how it would look if I was in that situation, something I've never seen.

The action is only a small portion of this movie. But I was still invested because of the story and characters. There were scenes of suspense as well as slower character moments, but I was never bored. It does a good job of balancing many moving parts (different groups, races and motivations).

Watching this movie, I couldn't help but notice how far we've come regarding Islamophobia in action movies. I grew up watching action movies where brown skin = bad guy. And even worse, they were usually portrayed as gross and barbaric. Kandahar does a much better job of illustrating the complexity of the situation, how not everything is black and white, and how there are people within those communities trying to fight against what's wrong.

I think The Covenant does a better job of holding all sides (including our own) accountable, whereas Kandahar shows sympathy without ever asking for accountability. Even the main character does some bad things that are never addressed. I wish they went that extra step to show how detrimental the outside influences can be on these situations.

Nevertheless, I had a good time with this movie and am happy with how fairly and not one-sided things are portrayed.

(1 viewing, early screening Mystery Movie Monday 5/15/2023)

This is a perfectly good movie. The comparisons to The Covenant, Guy Ritchie's movie with Jake Gyllenhaal are understandable, and while there are some similarities, it is not a like for like by any means. There are in fact many differences. I won't spell them out for fear of giving spoilers, but if you watch both movies you will get my point. Gerard Butler does seem to be the go to guy for an awful lot of action movies over the last five plus years, but there is a good reason for that. He meets the requirements of a Hollywood hero very well; handsome, likeable, tough and and pretty decent actor for the most part. I enjoyed the movie and would recommend to anyone who likes action/military type movies.