Kandahar (2023)
The only thing more dangerous than the mission is the escape.
Director: Ric Roman Waugh · Writer: Mitchell LaFortune
After his mission is exposed, an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all whilst avoiding elite enemy forces and foreign spies tasked with hunting them down.
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Trailer
Director
Ric Roman Waugh
Cast
Gerard Butler
Tom Harris 
Navid Negahban
Mohammad 'Mo' Doud 
Travis Fimmel
Roman Chalmers 
Ali Fazal
Kahil Nasir 
Bahador Foladi
Farzad Asadi 
Nina Toussaint-White
Luna Cujai 
Mark Arnold
Mark Lowe 
Corey Johnson
Chris Hoyt 
Hakeem Jomah
Rasoul 
Tom Rhys Harries
Oliver Altman 
Ray Haratian
Ismail Rabbani 
Elnaaz Norouzi
Shina Asadi User Reviews (7)
A CIA agent in Afghanistan has to try escape the hostile territory when his disguise is blown. If you apply some suspension of disbelief to accept that it would be possible to a single man to survive being followed by an army of enemies, Kandahar is actually a quite well-made movie! Very contemporary, following the US withdrawal from Afghanistan, the movie does a good job showing the hostile atmosphere where different factions (Taliban, I.S.I.S, and the Iranian government) fight each other but have a common hatred towards the western interference. Definitely worth watching, especially if you enjoy "war escape" movies.
Yet another military pot boiler, starring, once again, Gerard Butler. Kandahar pretends to be open and inclusive. There's a modest plug for nationalism/patriotism, from the perspective of different nations.That said, this film is essentially about saving a man who commits a pretty awful act of terrorism, in another nation, at the behest of the CIA. Its quite watchable, there's a lot of serviceable action. That' said, its hard to overlook the predictable marketing of US/UK exceptionalism as "A-OK". Sorry but as far as this viewers concerned, it's anything but "OK". In summary, a pro Western military action flick. Quite watchable in its own way but as they say "it is what it is". There's no changing that.
The Best
Gerard Butler is an actor who knows his strengths and takes roles that play to them, and his charismatic lead performance is one of the best things about “Kandahar,” a military action thriller about undercover CIA operative Tom (Gerard Butler) who is stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan with his translator, Mo (Navid Negahban). It’s vaguely familiar to this year’s “The Covenant” from Guy Ritchie, yet the two films are very different. Here, the two men must work together to avoid the elite special forces unit that has been tasked with hunting them down after their mission is exposed. The plot is very by-the-book and simple, but Mitchell LaFortune’s script features thoughtful writing with a politically-minded slant. There’s a lot of conversational drama that feels draggy in parts (and a lot of it is offset by massive explosions and flashy shootouts), but the sc…
When a CIA mission goes awry, agent "Harris" (Gerard Butler) finds himself stuck in Afghanistan with his interpreter "Parshand" (Farhad Bagheri) and with his identity now on the open market! As you might expect, the next two hours is spent on the usual, derivative, cat and mouse antics as they try to stay one step ahead of pursuing warlords, mercenaries and - well, luckily, I don't actually have a gun! It's so formulaic and unnecessary this film and by half an hour in there isn't the slightest hint of jeopardy, nor much respect for an ancient culture that is treated as if it were just another outing for an American political and military establishment that treats all parts of the world as if they were extensions of Texas. The dialogue is banal and a bit like after his last outing - "Plane" (2023) we really ought to be telling Mr. Butler to hang up his rifle and leave well alone. Nothing …
Another okay Butler action movie, but a little low on the action part. They tried to make the main villain guy way too "cool" and he just ended up seeming like a bad anime character. Bunch of white savior stuff going on here and some comments could be made about how the translator wouldn't need saving by the US if not for the US in the first place. Ummm, ya, whatever, looking forward to more Butler! You can put this ham on your face if you want, but it's a bit slimy.
From the director of "Greenland", Ric Roman Waugh has an established style of working, this time again with Gerard Butler. This action-thriller from the starter writer Mitchell LaFortune doesn't fall far from other films of this genre that became a trend lately (the relation of black-ops agents or soldiers and the translators that follows them, many times not credited from the danger they expose themselves from). But is is a solid movie with far distance and expansive shots of landscape, another mark of the director that used the spanish MacGregor cinematographer (The Fall) for this work, filmed in in Saudi Arabia, being the first big-budget U.S. feature to shoot in the country's Al-Ula and Jeddah. Solid action scenes and the interesting fact of being one of the few movie's that I'd view that shows the complexity of faction in the region, between Taliban, ISISK, Warlord and even th…
