Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

Starring – Gerard Butler, Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal

The Plot – An undercover CIA operative (Butler) gets stuck in hostile territory in Afghanistan after his mission is exposed. Accompanied by his translator (Negahban), he must fight enemy combatants as he tries to reach an extraction point in Kandahar.

Rated R for violence and adult language

Kandahar Trailer #1 (2023) – YouTube

POSITIVES

That trademark film has always seemed to have eluded Ric Roman Waugh, but there’s good reason to believe that “Kandahar” might just be his best film to date, with a marriage of style and substance that exudes itself terrifically towards the integrity of the experience. For style, cinematographer Macgregor locks and loads on the immensity of the desert location, with winding pans, wide angle lens framing, and appropriate lighting filters that come as close to natural for nighttime luminating as scenes in the dark can properly conjure. For substance, Waugh zeroes in on the danger and ferocity of Afghanistan, with deception and vulnerability feeling like currency that doubles by the minute while our protagonists are involved in some very unpredictable circumstances. However, it’s the touch of responsibility in characterization that I appreciated most from Waugh’s direction, with characters of every side harvesting a rich blanketing of humanity that only further appealed towards the complexity of their designs, while providing an empathetic side to even enemy depiction that makes you invest in everything that stands on the line for them, as well as the protagonists we stand along for the duration of the experience. In fact, one such character in the Iranian army was possibly my favorite character of the entire film, with the kind of iron-clad resiliency and dreamer’s ambition that prescribed a three-dimensional depth to antagonists that they often don’t receive in films like these. For performances, Butler is certainly doing nothing new in exerting the remarkable physicality to his portrayal, but once more it’s the humbling side of his hearty demeanor that is most integral to our engagement, solidifying perfection in the everyman approach that he seams to seamlessly attain in films, despite some remarkable feats that he attains in off-setting his enemies. Navid Negahban is also a breath of fresh air as Butler’s on-screen translator, balancing an earnestness with a nuanced melancholy that outlines something deeper in his motivation. The chemistry between he and Butler grows organically the longer the film persists, with each sharing compassionate interactions with one another that only further add to the complexities in the concepts of war and illegal surveillance.

NEGATIVES

Unfortunately, a few key decisions in creativity within the confines of the script keep “Kandahar” from reaching its fullest potential, while making the nearly two hour run time feel a bit demanding throughout. The first aspect is the imbalance of a plodding opening act, which will surely test and wither audience investment, if they’re not completely invested in these characters from the opening shot. For my money, it takes a little longer than expected or preferred for the tension to build, and the action to materialize, leading to an exposition heavy introduction that doesn’t make the most of its precious minutes to capitvate an audience immediately. This is further perplexing with the action, which while shot and performed exceptionally, as previously conveyed in my positives, always seems to resolve itself anticlimactically with bad timing that prematurally wastes away the pay-off. It’s strange how this is continuously experienced throughout the film, especially since the build to such sequences practically begs for a powder-keg of devastation. Even the ending between two vital characters has been illustrated with an air of inevitability that we know will be the final showdown, but it comes and goes as quickly as a dust storm, leaving me a bit underwhelmed for conflicts that were built quite remarkably. My last problem with the script pertains to a vitally important character who is kidnapped in the opening ten minutes of the film, then never depicted again for the entirety of the two hour run time. To be honest, I kind of forgot about this character until she popped up unceremoniously during the film’s closing minutes, and I feel it’s a problem because it undercuts the stakes of the circumstances a bit by drifting away from her perspective, meanwhile leaving this film without a compelling female side of things that could’ve exerted its own uniqueness to surrounding subplots. Finally, my only other problem besides the script lent itself to some color choices in the on-screen text that translated the multitude of foreign languages delivered throughout the film. The choice of yellow is bad enough in a movie that roughly 80% of it takes place across desert landscapes, but it’s made even worse when it’s supplanted at the very center of the screen with fading obscurity that takes away focus from what’s transpiring in corresponding visuals.

OVERALL
“Kandahar” is a vast improvement in the expansive filmography of Ric Roman Waugh, but still a few key decisions shy of being a contemporary classic for war films with an anti-war agenda. Butler and Negahban conjure enough heart and humanity to the engagement to really make the conflicts stick with urgency and importance, and the shades of grey supplanted to all sides of the conflict is a responsibly refreshing take, but the trembling of action sequences with untimely impatience in resolution never unloads the mounting tension that Waugh builds tremendously, forcing him to fight fire without the fire that would make this a riveting spectacle.

My Grade: 6/10 or C+