action thriller
“Kandahar”: Gerard Butler as Agent
Tom Harris (Gerard Butler) struggles through. photo
© Hopper Stone/Leonine/dpa
Gerard Butler fights his way through Afghanistan as an agent in the politically explosive action thriller. He does not correspond to the classic hero in the film, which repeatedly strives for differentiation.
Now Butler ends up working as a freelance agent in the Iranian-Afghan border region – 119 cinema minutes in which it is sometimes unclear where good and bad lie. Director Ric Roman Waugh sent Butler on a similarly gripping journey three years ago in the comet thriller “Greenland”.
There are 30 hours left
“Someone torched Iran’s crown jewels.” That someone, in the film, is Tom Harris, a British agent who works for the CIA, played by Butler. But a whistleblower uncovers the CIA’s involvement in the destruction of the Iranian reactor – and things are getting tight for Butler’s character: He has 30 hours to make his way from Iran to Kandahar, Afghanistan.
To survive, Tom has an Afghan translator (Navid Negahban) by his side. This Mo, whose son was killed by the Taliban, hates any kind of warfare. Various agents, including parts of the Iranian Revolutionary Guard, are pursuing Mo and Tom. It is more than questionable whether the two will make it to Kandahar.
Butler, who is very reminiscent of Mel Gibson here, once again does his job quite well. His grumpy, full-bearded interpretation of masculinity may not correspond to current ideas of modern gender concepts across the board. The melancholy that always lives in his eyes, alongside his determination, makes his Tom Harris a likeable, easily broken CIA agent.
Not a hero in the classic sense, not an unreflected over-man. His daughter’s graduation party, whom he embraces in a touching, if slightly distant, manner at the end of the film, is important to him. However, fulfilling his duties as an agent is also important to Tom.
Action film or political thriller?
The strength of “Kandahar” lies in the differentiated depiction: No character that only has one side – in most of the characters there are sides that try to be human. Despite all efforts to achieve balance, the two-hour film isn’t always sure which direction it should go in: action hits or rather a sophisticated political thriller?
This suggests that “Kandahar” will have a hard time at the box office, which would be a shame. And not just because of the following scene: Harris is sitting in the Afghan wasteland with translator Mo and thanks all the translators who have already stood by him and other agents. An unusual, touching moment in an often overheated and mostly superficial genre.
Strong soundtrack
The music by the British composer David Buckley remains to be mentioned, which at times sounds oriental, then pops again and accompanies what is happening on the screen congenially: you don’t see that very often in mainstream action cinema anymore, where digital mass-produced goods have been popular for a long time.
Buckley has already provided accompanying music for brilliant films such as “Jason Bourne” or “The Town”. However, it remains to be seen whether “Kandahar” will one day be mentioned in the same breath as feature films like this one. But Buckley’s enigmatic sounds ring in your ears for a while.