Review: ‘Kandahar’ Attempts To Tap A Dry Well

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KANDAHAR (2023)

Lacking originality and any memorable moments, Kandahar is another “gotta get our guy out” Middle East movie that taps a dry well.

In the film, a translator (Navid Negahban) accompanies a compromised CIA spy (Gerard Butler) battling through a hostile Afghanistan to get to an extraction point in Kandahar. If that sounds familiar, it’s because another recent release (Jake Gyllenhaal’s The Covenant) has a rather similar plot. It’s not that this is a bad movie, it’s just that there is nothing here that we haven’t seen before. Butler is exactly as you would expect here, delivering the action moments with gusto as he unconvincingly turns dialogue that seems like an amalgamation of better films. Negahban and the rest of the cast are solid in support, but they sadly have nothing to work with. Director Nic Roman Waugh has put together a good-looking film with solid camerawork, proper editing, and an avoidance of cheap-looking moments, but that’s not enough to make Kandahar worth watching.

One particular scene that is rather neat and engaging involves night vision and a helicopter, the frames quickly switching between what Butler’s character is seeing and a focus on both him and Negahban. The problem is that the latter frames are incredibly dark and take away from what could have been a unique sequence had it been delivered better. It comes across choppy and ends with what amounts to a theatrical exclamation point aided by explosions.

It’s time for Hollywood to move on from these films that continue to explore hostilities in the Middle East and use them as a backdrop for stories of American heroes. Kandahar tries to be a smart spy film, but it lacks the depth and ingenuity that would make it stand out (a subplot regarding a kidnapped journalist is largely abandoned for the majority of the film). Put simply, we’ve seen this all before. 

Kandahar hits theaters this Friday.

Rating: 2/5