CAST: Gerard Butler as Tom Harris; Navid Negahban as Mohammad “Mo” Doud; Travis Fimmel as Roman; Ali Fazal as Kahil Nazir; Bahador Foladi as Farzad Asadi

DIRECTOR: Ric Roman Waugh

Meet Tom Harris, your quintessential Gerard Butler protagonist with a generic name that could belong to anyone. As one of the CIA’s most skilled operatives, Harris, a former MI6 agent, cleverly disguises himself as a telecommunications repairman. His covert role is vital to the agency’s mission to uncover and destroy underground nuclear weapons facilities scattered across Iran.

However, in classic Butler fashion, Harris’s unwavering dedication to his job has left his personal life in ruins. A phone call from his wife forces him to confront the harsh reality that he must be present at his daughter’s upcoming graduation—no negotiations. Oh, and there’s also the matter of those divorce papers she sent over, patiently awaiting his signature.

Ready to leave his life of espionage behind and embrace fatherhood, Harris prepares to pack his belongings and head home. But fate has a different plan in mind. An old CIA comrade approaches him, seeking his assistance with one final mission. Initially intrigued, Harris initially declines but changes his heart when he realizes the payoff could secure his daughter’s future medical education. All he needs to do is venture into Afghanistan, a treacherous land controlled by the Taliban, and obliterate a perilous nuclear power plant.

However, things take a drastic turn once Harris crosses the border. He quickly discovers that his support network isn’t as robust as he believed. With his American CIA superiors willing to abandon him to his fate, he must rely on his negotiation skills to secure passage on an MI6 plane bound for Europe, scheduled to depart the following day. Surviving the harrowing quagmire for a mere 30 hours becomes the ultimate test, as he must navigate hostile enemy territory and find his way to the awaiting aircraft. Extracting himself from this treacherous landscape proves to be the most formidable challenge of Harris’s illustrious career.

We are big fans of thrilling Gerard Butler movies, but it becomes a different story when a Gerard Butler film tries to seriously tackle geopolitics. It becomes even more different when the movie lacks the excitement and action that we typically associate with Butler’s films.

The film is directed by Ric Roman Waugh, who previously worked with Butler on “Angel Has Fallen” (2019) and “Greenland” (2020).

One of the most surprising aspects of “Kandahar” is its sharp writing. Mitchell LaFortune, a former special ops agent, crafts a tight script that skillfully balances spectacle with substance. The film portrays a collaboration of intelligence agencies worldwide working together to accomplish an unimaginable mission. While some of the action sequences may not meet all expectations, they never detract from the film’s overall impact due to their clever integration into the plot.

Typically, these types of movies tend to lack a nuanced antagonist, particularly when an American or European protagonist is pitted against a nonwhite “foreigner.” However, “Kandahar” successfully avoids falling into the disappointing racial tropes often found in this subgenre. While the primary villains originate from Afghanistan and Iran, LaFortune ensures that “Middle Easterners” are not portrayed as a monolithic threat, as many comparable films have done. Instead, he highlights the fractured nature of these countries, with numerous factions holding dramatically different goals. While they may share a common hatred towards America, the film delves into how terrorist coalitions can be divided along racial, gender, and strategic lines, adding an intriguing layer to the narrative.

The film presents a clap back to those so-called “Islamist” outfits that thrive on working for Islam, whereas they actually are just mercenaries with no practice of Islamic principles.

Need to mention Ali Fazal, ofcourse – in one of his better international roles as a Pakistani ISI Agent in Afghanistan out for playing political games.