Up recently, I watched Gerard Butler’s Plane and Last Seen Alive, which are decent action thrillers. Gerard Butler is known to deliver some decent action thrillers just like Liam Neeson. Therefore, I thought I would wait for something new from him to review. But then, I watched the much anticipated Kandahar. That made me think if it’s Gerard Butler or something else that I disliked.

You see there’s indeed something wrong with Hollywood when they try to portray the Middle East. But, it’s still consistent with the track record of the US. And, yeah, they have bombed 6 or 7 middle eastern countries and so how can their portrayal be any different. You see a pattern where an American patriotic soldier befriends a local middle eastern guy and sympathizes with his circumstances and fate but is never able to do anything. We saw this in Green Mile, which is a decent thriller. Then, we saw several thrillers after that following the same pattern and yes that was consistent in Marvel Comics Iron Man too.

Kandahar could have been a decent thriller if executed well with a proper screenplay. But they chose to drive the movie the same way others have driven. People have already started rejecting this sort of movie making unless it gives something else to the audience.

By something else, I clearly don’t mean to cast a Bollywood actor, Ali Faizal, as a Pakistani ISI agent. And then, use him in the entire movie for just bike sequences. I didn’t get the point of having him in the movie at all assuming that there was some logic.

Overall, the movie finishes as expected with the American hero coming home. I mean Guy Ritchie’s take with the Covenant was much better. At least the movie was made to empathize with the local cast which is very different from most Hollywood movies.

The only good aspect about the movie, Kandahar, is that it is shot well in the deserts of Afghanistan. But if you are looking to explore more about the other prominent “under utilized” actors such as Vassilis Koukalani and Navid Negahban, you should better Tehran which is available on Apple TV plus.