‘Kandahar’ review: Gerard Butler goes to war — against entertainment
nypost.comDirector Ric Roman Waugh’s drab film fumbles and grumbles through Iran, the United Arab Emirates and eventually Afghanistan as the hunt for CIA Agent Tom Harris (Butler) intensifies. “Kandahar,” to its credit, aspires to be deep.
Geopolitics come up, as does the Taliban’s mangled interpretation of the Quran, along with ISIS and other aftershocks of American wars in the Middle East.Really, though, it is just another tiresome and impenetrably brooding Gerard Butler movie in which no event seems to matter any more than the next one — and grimaces are mistaken for drama.
Before ho-hum Harris goes on the run, he is posing as a utility worker in Iran while attempting to destroy a nuclear plant. Dangerous job done, he’s a day away from flying home to attend his daughter’s graduation in London, when his identity is revealed — thanks to an intelligence leak to a journalist.
That reporter is violently captured by the Islamic Revolutionary Guard in her hotel room, and then — in a move that foreshadows the shoddy character development throughout — we get to know next to nothing about her.In Dubai, Harris is told by his handler (Travis Fimmel) that he will be extracted by plane in Kandahar, Afghanistan, along with local translator Mo (Navid Negahban).
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