Kandahar

A veteran undercover CIA operative gets stuck deep in hostile territory after his mission is exposed. Accompanied by his translator, he has a small window of time to make his way across Afghanistan to the only place with a way out of the country: Kandahar.

Hence the film’s title…

Now obviously, whenever you watch one of these kinds of films, you’re going to get into Gung-ho rah-rah American Imperialism territory. You’re either good with that, or you’re not. But because of that, I always find it funny when they do these films with an actor with a foreign accent (in this case Scottish) that, for some reason—perhaps the ability of the actor, perhaps they just didn’t give a fuck—the film makes absolutely no effort to hide. Instead, the character is always said to be “on loan” from some other Foreign Intelligence Service (in this case MI-6, the British equivalent of the CIA). I don’t know if that’s really common or not, but it always feels silly, and also adds a mercenary aspect not just to the character, but American Foreign Policy as well, that ends up making the whole effort feel a little more shady, which in turn kind of taints any possible redemptive aspects of the character, mostly because, without the thin veneer of “patriotism” the question of the main character’s motivation only has a few options, none of which can be twisted into appearing to be noble, and this is made all the worse, because of how it all feels inadvertent, BUT… this certainly isn’t the film’s main problem, and not to be too mean, but its not like this film will be remembered by very many people in a few years either way, so… whatever.

Kandahar is trying to be about Men Who Have A Code. It’s trying to be about knowing what you’re fighting for, and how pointlessness that can be with modern conflicts, as the fighting itself is the entire point. This is why the film generally isn’t all that big on action (despite, I think, general audience expectations otherwise), and the few big action set-pieces it does have are all presented “realistically.” Tone-wise, the clash between its attempts to be a “serious” action movie with something serious to say about the legacy of American Adventurism abroad, and it’s acknowledgement of the “Boom! Explosions and Car Chases” super-spy Jason Bourne action movie that people will be looking for, is often pretty awkward. Nothing highlights this more than when the action grinds to a halt for a small break between the two main characters for a quick tangent into “Serious Talk between Noble Warriors With Regrets,” usually to highlight the plight of the local translators that America abandoned following the close of our various warfronts in the Middle East.

In the end, this is another “not bad, but not great” film, and all of its myriad issues and stumbles and baggage aside, it’s a decent modern espionage thriller action flick, as our hero is basically just trying to come in from out of the cold, with Afghanistan as the new Cold War era Berlin, presented as a place of dangerous shadows, a Wild West where you can’t trust anyone.

Kandahar isn’t reinventing any wheels, but it’s fine for what it is.