'Kandahar' Review: Marooned in a Dull Movie – The New York Times

Everyone needs to search out the undercover C.I.A. agent Tom Harris (Gerard Butler), who’s marooned whereas on a mission in Afghanistan: the Taliban, an Iranian hound, ISIS, a Pakistani secret operative. The one individuals who gained’t be on his tail are these on the lookout for a great motion movie — the stupefyingly sluggish “Kandahar” isn’t it.

For his third collaboration with the director Ric Roman Waugh after “Greenland” (by far one of the best of the three, from 2021) and “Angel Has Fallen” (2019), Butler has picked a quite ineffective automobile, similar to when Tom and his translator, Mo, steal a automotive that promptly will get a flat as they rush to catch a flight out of Kandahar.

Not solely is the tempo tepid at finest, however Tom is a bore, with no less than three characters extra intriguing than he’s. Chief amongst them is Mo, portrayed by the superb Navid Negahban (“Homeland,” “Aladdin”). An Afghan exile, he has returned residence to attempt to find his sister-in-law — a extra compelling quest than Butler’s, whose prime motivation is … what precisely? Not being late to his daughter’s commencement in London? The nominal star is continually overshadowed by his co-stars, who additionally embrace Ali Fazal because the dashing, motorcycle-riding Pakistani agent and Bahador Foladi as Iran’s reply to Inspector Javert.

Extra aggravating is the way in which “Kandahar” retains citing women and girls — on a big scale, the Taliban oppresses them; on a extra intimate one, Tom is an absentee husband and father — with out really giving any of them first rate display screen time. The lip service solely makes that absence extra noticeable.

Kandahar
Rated R for language and ridiculous roughness. Working time: 2 hours. In theaters.