movie review kandahar 2023

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I’m all for a juicy, action-packed Gerard Butler movie. A Gerard Butler movie that wants to have its geopolitics taken seriously is a different matter. And honestly, it’s an even more different matter when the movie is not particularly juicy or, you know, action-packed.

In this picture, directed by Ric Roman Waugh (who guided Butler through 2019’s “ Angel Has Fallen ” and 2020’s “ Greenland ”), Butler plays Tom Harris, a CIA black ops agent we first see planting explosives to stymie Iran’s nuclear program. A commendable idea, the film thinks we would all agree. In a rooftop phone conversation a little later, we learn he’s estranged from the mother of his daughter—no kidding!—because he’s addicted to the job—of course! And also that he’s got a limited amount of time to get on a plane to England to attend his daughter’s graduation.

Butler’s character in this year’s far superior “ Plane ” had the same deadline challenge, only in that movie, the daughter was graduating college, whereas this daughter looks like she’s only graduating high school.

Well. This development certainly made me sit up and take notice. How many stale ingredients was this script by Mitchell LaFortune to serve up? Let me sort of count the ways. First off, surprise, Harris does not catch his plane to Gatwick. Second, he has to join forces with an Afghan translator, Mo ( Navid Negahban ), and, um, even though they are culturally Worlds Apart, they form a Strong Bond that sustains and changes Harris’ mind about certain things. Once whatever cover these two guys have has been blown, they’ve got to reach the title Afghan city in order to get back to where they ostensibly belong. It takes a whole 50 minutes of indifferent cloak and dagger before we get our first car chase.

Which is tracked by CIA overlords in a kind of war room where many of their moves are captured by drone cameras. When Harris pulls a fancy maneuver in a pickup truck, one of the observers says, “I like this guy, he’s good,” like a sports commentator or something.

In a pause in the action, such as it is, Mo gives Tom some advice about the importance of getting to his kith and kin: “You have to go home and hold them in your hearts before you forget what it feels like.” Do screenwriters think dialogue like this gets stronger the more you recycle it? At a Militia camp, Tom relaxes with a tribal leader of his acquaintance, who offers this pearl: “The harder you try to stamp out an ideology, the stronger it becomes.” No kidding. Mo recognizes this cat as a warlord who conducted a campaign of slaughter in which Mo’s own son was killed and calls him out. This leads to a standoff that doesn’t have, well, the juice that it aspires to. And it also emboldens Mo to face down Tom about how the misery in this region is because of interlopers like the U.S. Fair point—finally!—but at this late point in the movie, it smacks of lip service.

What’s left? More chases, one rendered in different shades of night vision to mostly obfuscating effect; some noble self-sacrifice from a supporting Special Forces guy, a buildup to a showdown with the enigmatic motorcycle rider who’s been pursuing Tom since that first car chase ( Ali Fazal , maintaining his cool), and who wants out of the game as soon as he’s eliminated this target. In other words, all the usual suspects. And they all are kind of tired.

Now playing in theaters. 

Glenn Kenny

Glenn Kenny was the chief film critic of Premiere magazine for almost half of its existence. He has written for a host of other publications and resides in Brooklyn. Read his answers to our Movie Love Questionnaire here .

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Film credits.

Kandahar (2023)

Rated R for violence and language.

119 minutes

Gerard Butler as Tom Harris

Navid Negahban as Mo

Ali Fazal as Kahil

Bahador Foladi as Farzad Asadi

Olivia-Mai Barrett as Ida Harris

Rebecca Calder as Corrine Harris

Vassilis Koukalani as Bashar

Hakeem Jomah as Rasoul

• Ric Roman Waugh
• Mitchell LaFortune

Cinematographer

• Colby Parker Jr.
• David Buckley

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Review: Gerard Butler makes the unwieldy ‘Kandahar’ worthwhile

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Our macho action movie auteurs are starting to reckon with the tragic situation in Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban after the withdrawal of the United States in 2021. On the heels of “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” comes Ric Roman Waugh’s “Kandahar,” starring Gerard Butler, a brutal actioner crawling with Taliban, ISIS-K and various covert operatives.

But while Butler vehicles are typically lean, mean, action-cinema delivery machines, Waugh’s “Kandahar” is not the usually efficient Butlerian fare such as “Plane,” or even “Greenland,” the previous film on which this director and star collaborated. Yes, Butler does play a sad single dad on his way to meet up with his daughter, as he did in “Plane” (if he has a flight to catch, something crazy is about to go down), but “Kandahar” is much bigger and broader.

Screenwriter Mitchell LaFortune, a U.S. Army and Defense Intelligence Agency veteran, brings a sense of authenticity to this complicated tale of contemporary spy fiction that attempts to encompass warring terrorist factions, fascist regimes, CIA black ops, Pentagon whistleblowers and kidnapped journalists, as well as reckon with the enduring trauma of the 20-year war.

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The premise itself is simple enough: Butler plays Tom Harris, an MI6 agent on loan to the CIA tasked with blowing up an Iranian nuclear reactor by a deep cover operative named Roman ( Travis Fimmel ). He’s then sent by Roman to Afghanistan for one last gig, but when his cover is blown, he needs to make a quick escape, crossing 400 miles of desert to Kandahar, where he will be picked up by a British plane. Accompanying him is his translator, Muhammad (Navid Negahban). Hot on their heels are Farzad (Bahador Foladi), an emissary from the Iranian supreme leader hoping to capture the spy who destroyed their reactor, and a Pakistani agent from ISIS-K, Kahil ( Ali Fazal ), who has contracted the Afghani Taliban to help him grab Tom and sell him on the black market.

It’s a basic chase story, but the first 45 minutes of setup are hopelessly convoluted. It’s clear Waugh and LaFortune want to plant a variety of characters, motivations and back stories, creating a nuanced look at the situation that doesn’t blindly condemn or damn an entire swath of people, but there are one too many story lines and two too many characters to keep track of as we continually cut away from Tom and Muhammad’s harrowing journey.

The sweeping desert landscape is part “Lawrence of Arabia” and part “Mad Max” — Waugh borrows shots to capture the black-clad Kahil tearing through the desert on a motorcycle, surveying his prey from steep hillsides. Mononymous cinematographer MacGregor captures it all with a busy camera, the lens constantly moving, wobbling and focusing, infusing the proceedings with anxiety. Anguished close-ups dissolve over the desert landscape to the sound of mournful pop ballads underscoring the sorrowful nature of the characters’ circumstances.

“Kandahar” is a step above the Butler B-movie pleasures to which we’ve grown accustomed, but while Waugh and LaFortune attempt to fit the action star into this complex geopolitical narrative, it’s clear they are caught between a realism rock and a Hollywood hard place, succumbing to familiar, problematic tropes in order to bring this unwieldy yarn home. Still, it’s a pleasure to see Butler do his thing opposite a talented array of international performers — Fazal and Fimmel are standouts — and stretch his specific set of skills into more complex contemporary storytelling, making “Kandahar” worth the trip.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In English and Arabic with English subtitles Rating: R, for violence and language Running time: 2 hours Playing: Starts Friday in general release

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Kandahar (2023) Review

Kandahar (2023)

A Gerard Butler action movie? From the director of the risible Angel Has Fallen ? With a single word for a title (see also: Greenland , Geostorm , Plane )? Quietly and unceremoniously released on a streaming service? It’s fair to say that nobody was expecting Oscars for Kandahar . But while it certainly won’t be troubling Academy voters’ longlists, that initial weight of expectations is not entirely fair to it.

For while this film does, for the most part, fit neatly into Gerry B’s B-movie era, it is also a surprisingly mature and thoughtful entry on his prolific CV, a film that’s at least trying to be meaty rather than meat-headed. This is not a straight-up action movie. Working from a spec script by former military intelligence officer Mitchell LaFortune, who brings a modest level of verisimilitude that these sorts of films often lack, it has aspirations to be a high-minded, twisty geopolitical thriller, sober in tone and serious in themes.

Mostly mature, considered stuff, from a director-star combo who seem keen to defy expectations.

Here, Butler plays Tom Harris (joining the hallowed ranks of Mike Banning, Bob Viddick, and ‘Big Nick’ O’Brien in blokey Butler character names). Harris is a freelance spook; when we meet him, he’s posing as an electricity contractor, secretly undercover for the CIA, working to destroy a nuclear research facility in Iran. When a journalist (Nina Toussaint-White) is captured by Iran’s notorious security services, Harris’ true identity is leaked to the international press, and he’s forced to make a hasty exit, aided by translator and handler Mo (Navid Negahban). The pair must make the treacherous journey to Kandahar, where a British cargo plane awaits, pursued by Pakistani security services, Iranian military, Taliban warlords, and more.

If this story — of a Westerner attempting to escape Afghanistan with a local — sounds a lot like Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant , well, yes, there are some similarities. But that’s unfortunate timing, because Kandahar has a lot more on its mind than, say, Plane . It’s not short on well-directed action — a cat-and-mouse night chase in the desert between a truck and a helicopter is particularly tense — but in-between Butler’s usual bread-and-butter, there’s effort to consider the costly consequences of America’s recent interventions in the region. In particular, the film acknowledges the human fallout from the 2021 fall of Kabul to the Taliban, and the devastation left in a country seemingly doomed to endless tragedy. In a surprisingly moving scene, Butler’s character expresses guilt and regret over the memory of an Afghan translator who stayed with him through six tours — only to be hanged by ISIL.

By the third act, it follows a bit more of a familiar escape-from-a-warzone playbook, with a conclusion that won’t leave anyone surprised. The geopolitical machinations, meanwhile, are fairly surface-level; Kathryn Bigelow and Mark Boal need not be too worried by any pretenders to their throne. But this is mostly mature, considered stuff, from a director-star combo who seem keen to defy expectations and move above their usual cheap-and-cheerful prospects.

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‘Kandahar’ Review: Gerard Butler Does What Gerard Butler Does in Throwback Geopolitical Thriller

Christian zilko.

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In between stops on his quest to conquer every form of transportation known to man — “Plane” hit theaters in January and its sequel “Ship” is on the way — Butler found time to take a trip to the desert. His latest attempt at lucrative obscurity , Ric Roman Waugh’s “Kandahar,” sees him playing an elite CIA operative trying to navigate the labyrinth of underground nuclear weapons programs in the Middle East after the United States’ rushed withdrawal from Afghanistan turned the region into even more of a Wild West than it already was. Related Stories ‘Unsung Hero’ Review: Joel Smallbone’s Christian Rock Biopic Is a Hokey Power Ballad About the Miracles of Faith and Family ‘Nowhere Special’ Review: Tender, Quiet Adoption Drama About a Dying 35-Year-Old Dad Will Absolutely Destroy You

Tom Harris — a Butler protagonist always needs one of the most generic names on the planet — is one of the CIA’s best men. A former MI6 agent (gotta explain Butler’s accent somehow!), Harris’ undercover work as a telecommunications repairman has become an essential part of the agency’s plan to identify and blow up underground nuclear weapons facilities in Iran.

But — stop if you’ve heard this one before — his devotion to his job has left his personal life in a shambles. A call from his wife makes it clear that his presence at his daughter’s upcoming graduation is non-negotiable — and while he’s at it, he really needs to get around to signing those divorce papers she sent over.

He’s ready to pack up his things and head home to be a father for once, but an old CIA friend asks for his help with one last job. Tom isn’t interested, but reconsiders when he learns he could put his daughter through medical school with three days of work. All he has to do is cross the border into Afghanistan and travel through some of the most hostile Taliban-occupied territory to blow up a nuclear power plant.

These movies all come with a certain predictability — it’s probably not a spoiler to reveal that Butler plays a total badass who is capable of prevailing whenever all of the guys in suits insist that he’s screwed. But the most surprising thing about “Kandahar” is how sharp the writing is. Former special ops agent Mitchell LaFortune’s tight script makes a point to balance spectacle with something resembling substance, portraying multiple intelligence agencies from around the world working together to execute an impossible mission. Many of the action sequences leave something to be desired, but they never derail the film because they’re all justified with clever plot choices.

For better or worse, “Kandahar” is a throwback to the kind of Tom Clancy-inspired geopolitical thrillers that used to be a bi-weekly occurrence in the 1990s. But if you’ve ever found yourself wondering why Hollywood doesn’t make films like “The Hunt for Red October” or “Air Force One” anymore, you might have found your new favorite movie.

An Open Road Films release, “Kandahar” is now playing in theaters.

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‘Kandahar’: Same plot as ‘Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant,’ but meh

Gerard butler plays a cia contractor trapped in afghanistan with his interpreter and hunted by bad guys.

If you want to see a good movie about a warrior stranded in hostile territory in Afghanistan who’s trying to get himself and his Afghan interpreter to safety in Kandahar without getting killed, I’d recommend “ Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant ,” now available on Apple TV Plus , Google Play , Prime Video , YouTube and other platforms. A departure for the director of such violent, gleefully vulgar action-comedies as “Snatch” and “The Gentlemen,” Ritchie’s latest film, starring Jake Gyllenhaal and Dar Salim, is a moving testament to our obligation to the Afghan civilians who helped the U.S. military while we were there, many of whom were left behind only to go into hiding or be killed.

If, however, you’re willing to settle for a by-the-book action-adventure with almost the exact same plot, brought to you by the star and director of the dumb thrillers “ Angel Has Fallen ” and “ Greenland ,” well, ladies and gentlemen, I give you “Kandahar,” starring Gerard Butler and directed by Ric Roman Waugh.

Butler plays MI-6 agent Tom Harris, on loan to the CIA as the film opens and working undercover as a repairman for a Swiss telecom company (while actually sabotaging an Iranian nuclear power plant). When his handler (Travis Fimmel) convinces Tom to take a second job that entails him operating out of Herat, just over the boarder from Iran in Afghanistan, his cover is blown when a journalist (Nina Toussaint-White) — careless about intel she has been given by a Pentagon whistleblower — identifies Tom’s company to an Iranian intelligence officer (Bahador Foladi).

In short order, Tom and his interpreter Mo (Navid Negahban) are in a race against time to catch a U.S. flight out of the country from an unused CIA base in Kandahar, 400 miles away, while evading murderous thugs from the Taliban, an officer with Pakistan’s Inter-Services Intelligence agency (Ali Fazal) and even a treacherous leader of a Tajik militia group (Ray Haratian), who is only too happy to sell out his old friend Tom when the opportunity presents itself.

The proceedings, while capably staged and with an only moderately interesting subtext about the ageless inevitability of tribal war in that part of the world, are loud and violent. So, to some extent, was “Covenant.” But the new film has none of the earlier film’s emotional resonance. (Ritchie took his sweet time setting up why we should care about Salim’s Ahmed. The whole point of “Covenant” is about honoring commitments.)

“Kandahar,” on the other hand, just wants to get Tom and Mo home, to London and Baltimore, where Tom lives and Mo has relocated, respectively. While the action transpires in Afghanistan, we sometimes watch it over the shoulder of a heartless CIA bureaucrat at Langley named Lowe (Mark Arnold), on a Jumbotron that somehow is playing live drone footage of the whole perilous operation. At one point, Lowe says of Tom, “I like this guy. He is good.” Got it.

“Kandahar” is very much a box-ticking exercise, with Butler playing the same kind of hero — perhaps literally the same guy — he has built a career out of. Somehow, the movie “ Plane ” from earlier this year, a thriller in which Butler finds his jet pilot character trapped with an escaped murderer (Mike Colter) on a jungle island crawling with Filipino separatists, managed to actually satisfy a certain primal urge, the cinematic equivalent of junk food.

Based on its merits alone, “Kandahar” isn’t that much worse than “Plane.” It’s only when you hold it up against “The Covenant” that it feels not just like a letdown, but a betrayal.

R. Area theaters. Contains violence and strong language. 120 minutes.

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• DVD & Streaming
• Action/Adventure , Drama , War

Content Caution

In Theaters

• May 26, 2023
• 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

Home Release Date

• June 16, 2023
• Ric Roman Waugh

Distributor

Movie review.

If you have an international problem that you want solved—while keeping things on the down low—you turn to Tom Harris. He’s the kind of CIA black-ops agent who reconnoiters, plans and always follows through on a given mission with precision.

Of course, that kind of skilled delivery creates its own problems. It means he’s in demand. Constant travel to points unknown pretty much ruined his marriage. And it’s taking its toll on Tom’s relationship with his young daughter, too. She’s about to graduate from high school, and his ex-wife has already warned Tom that he better not miss the event.

He doesn’t plan to. I mean, if there’s anyone who makes Tom take a step back, it’s his ex.

After running point on a mission that leaves the Iranian nuclear program in shambles, Tom wraps things up and heads to the airport. But on a layover in Dubai, Tom’s next flight is cancelled. Oh, and he gets a call from an operative friend, Roman, who just might have had something to do with that cancellation.

Seems Roman wants his dependable bud to help out with a hugely important, but very brief, project. It shouldn’t take a guy like Tom more than a few days to see it through. Then Tom can head off to his daughter’s graduation. Roman even promises to sweeten the deal with a few stacks of cash. Hey, why shouldn’t CIA good guys pick up a little college-fund cash for their kids when they can?

Tom agrees to help. And he heads off to Afghanistan to meet the interpreter Roman’s set up there and to get things a hoppin’.

What Tom isn’t aware of, however, is that the Supreme Leader of Iran is still pretty angry after the explosive outcome of Tom’s recent nuclear-facility sabotage operation. The leader looks weak. He looks powerless. And supreme leaders don’t like that look. Especially when it’s at the hands of the Great Satan: America.

So Iranian officer Farzad Asadi has been given his orders. He’s put every bit of Iranian intelligence into the problem, kidnapped and tortured a local reporter, revealed American Pentagon sources. And now he’s honing in on a CIA operative named Tom Harris. In fact, every terrorist militant and thug in the Middle East is drooling over the price that’s been slapped on Tom’s head. When Tom lands in Afghanistan, he’s thinking about his daughter’s next step in life. But he needs to be worrying about his own.

Positive Elements

In the short, intense and frenetic time that Tom and his local interpreter, Mo, have together, they form a friendship. Mo, his friends and his family members have all suffered because of American actions, but he still gives his trust to Tom. The two men put their lives on the line for one another. After realizing that he has placed Tom in a dangerous situation, Roman rallies reinforcements to help him and Mo.

Mo (who has become a citizen of the US) asks a female acquaintance to leave Afghanistan and travel to America. But she refuses to do so, rather declaring that she will stay to fight for the hard-won freedoms that Afghani women briefly enjoyed.

In fact, one of the reasons that Mo returned to Afghanistan for the interpreting job was to help find his wife’s missing sister. Tom promises Mo that no matter what happens, he will help him find the missing woman.

Spiritual Elements

Kandahar clearly tries to depict Islam in a positive light. We see several different men kneeling to pray. One talks about studying the lessons of the Quran. Roman holds up his prayer beads at one point and declares that the religion has helped him find peace.

Mo, who is also a Muslim, comes face to face with a duplicitous man who killed his son years before. And though it’s obvious that he’s still filled with grief and anger, he tells the man, “God may not forgive your sins, but I do.”

A Muslim man is shot near the end of the film; the camera watches him as he dies and declares, “There is no god except Allah … Mohammed is the messenger of Allah … the gentle … the merciful … the kind.”

Sexual Content

We see a foreign agent in bed with a woman. They’re apparently unclothed, but they’re strategically covered by a sheer sheet.

Violent Content

This is a war film, so there’s an abundance of violence on tap in one form or another. Near the beginning, an underground nuclear facility explodes, killing seemingly hundreds and leaving the area smoking and on fire. During various chase scenes, vehicles are smashed, detonated and riddled with high-caliber weapons. Two large groups of military vehicles are decimated by explosive ordnance.

A truck flips end over end after being hit with an RPG shell.

Tom, Mo and others engage in a shoot-out with a helicopter in the dead of night. Several men get picked off thanks to infrared technology. The helicopter eventually crashes and burns on the ground.

We see lots of up close and personal deaths. Men are shot by automatic weapons, rifles and hand guns. Blood spatters the walls and vehicle windows. We see a couple of men executed with shots to the head. After an explosion in a public square, the bloodied bodies of the dead are scattered on the ground.

Two men run at each other while shooting pistols. One is shot in the side and leg. The other is hit in the neck, and we watch as he struggles to staunch the spurting blood.

A female reporter is manhandled, bound and dragged off. Later after what appears to have been torture, she is questioned.

We see victims hanging by their necks from a crane. Tom and Mo are badly wounded and bloodied, including bloody wounds on their bodies and tears and scrapes on their faces.

Crude or Profane Language

There are a dozen uses of the f-word and a handful of s-words in the movie’s dialogue, along with a use or two each of “b–ch” and “a–hole.” Jesus’ name is profaned once.

Drug and Alcohol Content

At several different points, people drink beer, wine, champagne, mixed drinks and glasses of hard alcohol. Tom sips from a flask.

We see people smoking cigarettes, and one man smokes a cigar.

Other Negative Elements

The film repeatedly points to the failings of the United States government. Nearly everyone decries America’s choices as manipulative, destructive and foul. Even Tom notes the hardships that anyone in the Middle East suffers if they help the U.S. In fact, the only American operatives, beside Tom, who seem to have any shred of honor are the ones who have immersed themselves in other cultures and other faiths in the Middle East.

Generally, when you seek out a good war movie, you look for intense action, a worthy cause to believe in and some good guys to cheer for. And that’s, well, sorta, kinda, almost what you get with Kandahar .

CIA operative Tom Harris and his beleaguered interpreter are caught behind Middle Eastern battle lines. They’re trying to help each other back to safety while various factions of bloodthirsty terrorists and killers seek their heads.

The problem is, the filmmakers have a whole cargo van full of geopolitical and human-rights abuse bones to pick here. And so they’ve painted America as a decidedly evil force in the world. Because of that worldview, it’s rather difficult to “cheer” for anything that’s going on here.

Instead, we’re left with a brutal barrage of formulaic ducking, running, bloodletting and foul screaming amid whizzing bullets and explosions. Kandahar ’s action will probably keep you from falling asleep. But you may end up feeling a little grimy by the time the credits roll.

After spending more than two decades touring, directing, writing and producing for Christian theater and radio (most recently for Adventures in Odyssey, which he still contributes to), Bob joined the Plugged In staff to help us focus more heavily on video games. He is also one of our primary movie reviewers.

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Movie Review – Kandahar (2023)

July 17, 2023 by Robert Kojder

Kandahar , 2023.

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh. Starring Gerard Butler, Ali Fazal, Bahador Foladi, Olivia-Mai Barrett, Rebecca Calder, Navid Negahban, Travis Fimmel, Nina Toussaint-White, Tom Rhys Harries, Vassilis Koukalani, Hakeem Jomah, Ray Haratian, Farzad Bagheri, Fahim Fazli, Lee Comley, Corey Johnson, Najia Khaan, and Darius Radac.

A CIA operative and his translator flee from special forces in Afghanistan after exposing a covert mission.

Director Ric Roman Waugh’s Kandahar marks the second time in as many months that a film’s heart comes from a bond between an operative and his field translator (the other is Guy Ritchie’s the Covenant ). Unsurprisingly, considering that Kandahar comes from the filmmaker behind Angel Has Fallen and Greenland , once again collaborating with Gerard Butler in the lead role, this version is more action-oriented but not without a thoughtful if sometimes messy emotional buildup attempting to explore the different motives of its various characters, nationalities, and militias.

Gerard Butler plays undercover CIA operative Tom Harris, posing as a construction worker in Iran alongside his field partner Oliver Altman (Tom Rhys Harries), claiming they are doing work to boost Internet signals, but are looking to shut down the country’s nuclear weapons operations remotely. That mission turns out to be an explosive success, taking Tom to another job in Afghanistan that he doesn’t want to take but quickly reconsiders based on the amount of cash thrown at him by his superior (Travis Fimmel). Considering his daughter is about to graduate high school, it’s valuable money, although his family mainly wants him back in one piece for the special event.

Tom is eventually partnered up with Mo (Navid Negahban), a stateside translator returning to Afghanistan for the mission to grieve his dead son and search for the sister he left behind, which provides a strong emotional core to an otherwise familiar narrative (I’ve lost count of how many Gerard Butler movies I have seen, let alone action films, where the hook is as simple as hoping the hero gets back home to his family) inside something more complicated demanding of more complexity.

To the credit of Ric Roman Waugh and screenwriter Mitchell LaFortune, they are trying to populate this story with opposing perspectives and characters (including a motorcycle-riding Pakistani agent played by Ali Fazal ordered to deal with Tom), but much of it comes across as flat and undercooked, often through rushed scenes establishing the bare minimum of characters. This also becomes a bigger issue since roughly the first hour is character-driven, where the only one that stands out is Mo. There is a sense that these filmmakers want to understand and tell a complex story about American relations with these countries and factions, unable to communicate those things in a dramatically involving way that never rises above feeding with one of simply learning about characters rather than feeling their motives.

Kandahar fares better once Ric Roman Waugh shifts into his wheelhouse house, as the nature of Tom’s presence is exposed, meeting that the only option is a race to the particular extraction point. There are vehicular chases across deserts gorgeously captured by cinematographer (MacGregor), including a helicopter battle where the most useful equipment might be night vision goggles. As the film builds to its grand climax, it involves everything from mortars to rocket launchers to airstrikes, maximizing the mayhem.

Ric Roman Waugh certainly knows how to stage bombastic destruction, and it is admirable that he wants to tell a thoughtful story around that, but he also gets lost within too many characters and groups when the compelling dynamic between Tom and his translator Mo provides more than enough riveting drama capable of providing weight to the impending action throughout the back half of Kandahar .

Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★

SEE ALSO: Exclusive Interview – Ric Roman Waugh on Kandahar and working with Gerard Butler

Robert Kojder is a member of the Chicago Film Critics Association and the Critics Choice Association. He is also the Flickering Myth Reviews Editor. Check  here  for new reviews, follow my  Twitter  or  Letterboxd , or email me at [email protected]

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'Kandahar': Release Date, Plot, Trailer, and Everything We Know so Far About the Gerard Butler Action-Thriller

Fresh after saving his 'Plane,' Gerard Butler is returning to the big screen this May.

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From battling out-of-control weather satellites in Geostorm , being the President's most trusted Secret Service agent during three(!) terrorist attacks in the Has Fallen trilogy, leading the Spartan army into battle in 300 , and most recently crashing a plane in Plane , Gerard Butler has become one of the busiest action stars in the business. The Scottish-born actor will be returning to the big screen this summer with his latest action flick Kandahar .

Kandahar is said to be derived from the film's writer Mitchell LaFortune 's personal experiences as a military intelligence officer deployed to Afghanistan in the aftermath of the Snowden leaks. The film aims to provide a distinctive viewpoint on the uproar surrounding Edward Snowden's intelligence dumps in 2013. Making headlines as one of the first big-budget Hollywood productions entirely filmed in Saudi Arabia's Al-Ula and Jeddah. Kandahar is essentially an action-thriller following the story of a CIA operative. Read everything about the film's release, plot, cast, filming, and more.

Related: 'Plane' Gets 4K UHD, Blu-ray Digital DVD Release Dates for Spring

Open Road Films acquired the North American rights to Kandahar on September 21, 2022, in a whopping eight-figure transaction and set the film for a 2023 theatrical release . Later, on January 26, 2023, the production and distribution company set a Memorial Weekend release date for Kandahar . The action-packed film is now set to premiere in theaters on May 26, 2023.

However, the film will be met with great competition. Disney's live-action adaptation of The Little Mermaid is also set to release on May 26, along with Sony's The Machine , and the Sebastian Maniscalco - Robert De Niro comedy About My Father .

Kandahar debuted its first-look images on February 10, 2023, and a week later Open Road Films released an adrenaline-filled trailer for Kandahar on February 16, 2023, through its official YouTube channel. You can watch the trailer below:

Within a few seconds of the trailer, Gerard Butler is seen asking about "the job," which is effectively dismantling a nuclear program, revealing to viewers the plot of the movie. While the characters prepare for and carry out the attack, a few desolate landscapes fill the screen. The scene is immediately followed by the explosion of the nuclear reactor being celebrated by the intelligence team. The trailer then starts building up anticipation as news breaks and exposes Butler's character as the man behind the attack. He then gears up to flee to an old CIA base in Kandahar along with his Afghan translator. 400 miles and 30 hours, will our heroes win this race for survival?

The official plot synopsis of Kandahar reads:

Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative, is stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan. When an intelligence leak exposes his identity and mission, he must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all whilst avoiding the elite special forces unit tasked with hunting them down.

Kandahar's plot is developed from the spec script by former military intelligence officer Mitchell LaFortune. The film takes place during the Snowden leaks of 2013 and offers a unique perspective of the events. Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative carrying out a dangerous mission in Afghanistan, takes the central stage in the movie, along with an Afghan translator. The film tells the story of how the two manage to elude the elite special forces squad entrusted with tracking them and make it to an extraction location 400 miles away in Kandahar, Afghanistan.

The majority of Kandahar 's filming in Saudi Arabia began on December 2, 2021 . This made the movie the first high-profile American production to film in Jeddah and Al-Ula, two cities in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia's Hejaz region and an ancient Arabic oasis city. Al-Ula is situated in the Medina province in northwest Saudi Arabia. The film employs the desolate terrain of Al-Ula to create scenes that are reminiscent of Afghanistan.

Related: Gerard Butler Is the Last Great B-Movie Action Hero

The first developments in the film's casting took place in June 2020, when it was announced that Gerard Butler would produce and star in the film. The veteran actor will be seen in the lead role as Tom Harris. Butler has established himself as a polished actor, especially in the action genre with his roles in films like 300 , Copshop , Den of Thieves , Geostorm , Plane , and the Has Fallen film series. Kandahar is also Butler's re-teaming with Angel Has Fallen and Greenland director Ric Roman Waugh .

Alongside Butler stars the Iranian-American actor Navid Negahban as an Afghan translator who accompanies Harris on his mission. He will be seen throughout the film alongside Butler as the two will attempt to escape the Afghan special forces together. Negahban's character might turn out to be a plot-bending one as Harris will be in charge of helping Negahban go home safely, and he might make some sacrifices for his safety. Navid Negahban has appeared in various series like 24 , Homeland , Mistresses , and Disney's live-action remake of Aladdin .

Kandahar will also feature Ali Fazal , an Indian actor who made an impression on Hollywood with roles in films including Victoria & Abdul and Death on the Nile . Not much is known about his character yet, but he is speculated to play an assassin for the Afghan special forces. Fazal also made a special appearance in Furious 7 as Safar.

Other cast members include Olivia-Mai Barrett ( Penny on M.A.R.S. ) as Ida Harris, Bahador Foladi ( Tehran ) as Farzad Asadi, as well as Nina Toussaint-White ( Bodyguard ) and Travis Fimmel ( Vikings ) in undisclosed roles.

Kandahar is directed by Ric Roman Waugh, known for his work in Felon , Snitch , and Shot Caller . The film's producers include Brendon Boyea , Gerard Butler, Basil Iwanyk , Scott LaStaiti , Christian Mercuri , and Alan Siegel . MacGregor has served as the cinematographer for the film and Colby Parker Jr. serves as the film editor. David Buckley composed the music. Production design is by Vincent Reynaud .

The production companies involved in the film are Thunder Road Films, G-BASE, Capstone Group, and MBC Studios. Kandahar will be distributed by Open Road Films in theaters on May 26, 2023.

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Amc entertainment preview of q1 results shows top movie theater circuit beating wall street estimates, ‘kandahar’ review: gerard butler reunites with ric roman waugh in depthless spy thriller.

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Kandahar reunites is director Rick Roman Waugh with Gerard Butler , after they made Angel Has Fallen and Greenland together. This time they tackle the spy thriller genre, with cast that includes Travis Fimmel, Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal, and Bahador Foladi. With the script penned by Mitchell LaFortune, these particular types of stories often suffer from narrative sameness: westerner travels to the Middle East, things go boom, westerner saves the day, the end. This follows a predictable path.

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Meanwhile, in Herat, Afghanistan, Mo (Negahban) is set to work as a translator and receives his orders from Roman (Fimmel), a CIA liaison in the UAE, where he meets Harris. Even though the CIA agent is on the run, Roman asks for one more short-term job to destroy another power plant, to which Harris says yes for some reason. This is when he connects with Mo, and the pair have limited time to finish the job before they are discovered and killed before getting home.

You know, there is an interesting subplot going on with Mo searching for his sister, who was a teacher abducted by the Taliban and hasn’t been heard from since. That is a mystery worth getting invested in, not whatever Kandahar is. Stories about the West at war with Brown people peaked with Kathryn Bigelow’s  Zero Dark Thirty  (Although I also enjoyed Nicolai Fuglsig’s  12 Strong ). Maybe there is something about chronicling history based on actual events that hold something over these made-up western savior narratives that have nothing going for them except to be monotonous, xenophobic and a complete bore. 

I promise I don’t have anything against this type of movie. I take issue with so many of them not being worth watching. For Kandahar to be called an action film, there should be action. Look, there isn’t much more to say about it except it will induce so many eye rolls you might see your brain stem in the process because watching through the whole 2-hour runtime is its own hostage situation.

Title:  Kandahar Release date:  May 26, 2023 Distributor:  Open Road Films Director:  Ric Roman Waugh Screenwriters:  Mitchell LaFortune Cast: Gerard Butler, Travis Fimmel, Navid Negahban, Ali Fazal, and Bahador Foladi Rating:  R Running time:  120 min

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Review: Gerard Butler makes the unwieldy ‘Kandahar’ worthwhile

Caught between reality and Hollywood, Roman Waugh’s convoluted geopolitical spy thriller expands the veteran action star’s skill set

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Our macho action movie auteurs are starting to reckon with the tragic situation in Afghanistan, which fell to the Taliban after the withdrawal of the United States in 2021. On the heels of “Guy Ritchie’s The Covenant” comes Ric Roman Waugh’s “Kandahar,” starring Gerard Butler, a brutal actioner crawling with Taliban, ISIS-K and various covert operatives.

But while Butler vehicles are typically lean, mean, action-cinema delivery machines, Waugh’s “Kandahar” is not the usually efficient Butlerian fare such as “Plane,” or even “Greenland,” the previous film on which this director and star collaborated. Yes, Butler does play a sad single dad on his way to meet up with his daughter, as he did in “Plane” (if he has a flight to catch, something crazy is about to go down), but “Kandahar” is much bigger and broader.

Screenwriter Mitchell LaFortune, a U.S. Army and Defense Intelligence Agency veteran, brings a sense of authenticity to this complicated tale of contemporary spy fiction that attempts to encompass warring terrorist factions, fascist regimes, CIA black ops, Pentagon whistleblowers and kidnapped journalists, as well as reckon with the enduring trauma of the 20-year war.

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The premise itself is simple enough: Butler plays Tom Harris, an MI6 agent on loan to the CIA tasked with blowing up an Iranian nuclear reactor by a deep cover operative named Roman ( Travis Fimmel ). He’s then sent by Roman to Afghanistan for one last gig, but when his cover is blown, he needs to make a quick escape, crossing 400 miles of desert to Kandahar, where he will be picked up by a British plane. Accompanying him is his translator, Muhammad (Navid Negahban). Hot on their heels are Farzad (Bahador Foladi), an emissary from the Iranian supreme leader hoping to capture the spy who destroyed their reactor, and a Pakistani agent from ISIS-K, Kahil ( Ali Fazal ), who has contracted the Afghani Taliban to help him grab Tom and sell him on the black market.

It’s a basic chase story, but the first 45 minutes of setup are hopelessly convoluted. It’s clear Waugh and LaFortune want to plant a variety of characters, motivations and back stories, creating a nuanced look at the situation that doesn’t blindly condemn or damn an entire swath of people, but there are one too many story lines and two too many characters to keep track of as we continually cut away from Tom and Muhammad’s harrowing journey.

The sweeping desert landscape is part “Lawrence of Arabia” and part “Mad Max” — Waugh borrows shots to capture the black-clad Kahil tearing through the desert on a motorcycle, surveying his prey from steep hillsides. Mononymous cinematographer MacGregor captures it all with a busy camera, the lens constantly moving, wobbling and focusing, infusing the proceedings with anxiety. Anguished close-ups dissolve over the desert landscape to the sound of mournful pop ballads underscoring the sorrowful nature of the characters’ circumstances.

“Kandahar” is a step above the Butler B-movie pleasures to which we’ve grown accustomed, but while Waugh and LaFortune attempt to fit the action star into this complex geopolitical narrative, it’s clear they are caught between a realism rock and a Hollywood hard place, succumbing to familiar, problematic tropes in order to bring this unwieldy yarn home. Still, it’s a pleasure to see Butler do his thing opposite a talented array of international performers — Fazal and Fimmel are standouts — and stretch his specific set of skills into more complex contemporary storytelling, making “Kandahar” worth the trip.

Katie Walsh is a Tribune News Service film critic.

In English and Arabic, with English subtitles Rating: R, for violence and language When: Opens Friday Where: Wide release Running time: 2 hours

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Kandahar movie review: Ali Fazal’s livewire performance isn’t enough to save Gerard Butler’s generic action film

Kandahar movie review: the new gerard butler vehicle is a mostly-dull slog that benefits greatly from a charismatic performance by ali fazal..

When The Russia House became one of the first Hollywood productions to be filmed inside the Soviet Union in 1989, it seemed like the winds of change were blowing across town. Nobody quite remembers it for anything else these days. And years from now, the equally unmemorable action film Kandahar will become a favourite subject at pub quizzes and trivia nights for similar reasons. Released on Prime Video after a brief theatrical run abroad, it’s the first major American production to be shot inside the formerly hermit Kingdom of Saudi Arabia.

But even if you remember the facts around its production, you’d likely be stumped if anybody were to interrogate you about the details of the film’s plot. Heck, you could probably claim a medal if you’re able to recall the name of Gerard Butler’s character (he’s called Tom Harris, by the way).”

Tom is a freelance contractor for the CIA, who, in the opening minutes of the movie, successfully hacks into an Iranian nuclear facility, which the Americans raze from the face of the earth some hours later. The Iranians aren’t pleased about this surgical strike, and so, they deploy a scary-looking moustachioed man to round up all the suspects and show them no mercy. The first on the list is a British journalist, who’d obtained documents to prove that the Americans were behind the attack on the nuclear facility. But when those documents are leaked, Tom Harris — that’s Butler’s character, remember? — finds that his cover has been blown. The CIA quickly sets a plan into motion to get him out of there.

What unfolds is essentially a chase thriller, in which Tom must race across the war-torn region towards Kandahar, where he has been assured an extraction team will meet him. He is joined by a local translator named Mo (Navid Neghaban) and is tailed by a vape-smoking, Tinder-swiping, hip-hop-blasting ISI agent named Kahil (played by Ali Fazal). Fazal is the film’s standout performer, injecting a world-weariness to his flamboyant character, who seems like the sort of person who has spent so much time in the field, he has discovered that to survive, he must find ways to entertain himself.

Kandahar strays from the kind of movies that Butler usually stars in these days — loud, muscular, and dead-serious action films in which he invariably saves the day at the end. For one, there’s very little action in Kandahar, which might strike Butler’s die-hard fans as a bit odd. The first act has this strange espionage thriller vibe that feels at once convoluted and yet so uncomplicated. For instance, nobody bothers to explain how Tom is able to evade capture so easily in the film’s opening scenes — especially after he already attracted the suspicion of local cops — but important plot beats about the leak of the secret documents are hammered home in the loudest manner possible.

The chase itself is rather unexciting. And there’s a roughly 15-minute stretch that takes place in the dark, which director Ric Roman Waugh occasionally films in night vision. There’s also an attempt, after the movie has stopped pretending to be Body of Lies, to contrive situations through which Tom and Mo can bond. This section of the movie is eerily similar to Guy Ritchie’s recent war drama The Covenant — an infinitely more enjoyable movie that, at its core, was also an apologia for the War on Terror.

But Kandahar’s remorseful tone about US foreign policy is ironic, considering where, and under whose supervision the movie was made. Unlike Mulan, for which Disney was (rightly) criticised for sanctioning scenes to be shot in China’s Xinjiang province, nobody raised a stink about Kandahar being filmed in Saudi Arabia. The movie itself has the gall to portray Iran and Afghanistan — the two countries in which its story is predominantly set — as barbaric hellscapes where people are hanged on street corners and random citizens are publicly flogged by men in uniforms.

Waugh has proven himself a skilled action filmmaker in the past, and a couple of set-pieces in Kandahar — particularly a mid-movie car chase — are nicely staged. But Kandahar is essentially like something that Kabir Khan would make — by-the-numbers genre fare with delusions of grandeur. By attempting to inject heft to the drama, and by completely robbing the experience of all levity, the movie ends up short-changing itself.

Kandahar Director – Ric Roman Waugh Cast – Gerard Butler, Ali Fazal, David Neghaban, Travis Fimmel Rating – 2/5

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Rohan Naahar is an assistant editor at Indian Express online. He covers pop-culture across formats and mediums. He is a 'Rotten Tomatoes-approved' critic and a member of the Film Critics Guild of India. He previously worked with the Hindustan Times, where he wrote hundreds of film and television reviews, produced videos, and interviewed the biggest names in Indian and international cinema. At the Express, he writes a column titled Post Credits Scene, and has hosted a podcast called Movie Police. You can find him on X at @RohanNaahar, and write to him at [email protected]. He is also on LinkedIn and Instagram. ... Read More

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Taylor Pherry is commanded by God to write a movie inspired by his crazy, dysfunctional family, but the Devil has his own devious plans in this hilarious spoof comedy. Taylor Pherry is commanded by God to write a movie inspired by his crazy, dysfunctional family, but the Devil has his own devious plans in this hilarious spoof comedy. Taylor Pherry is commanded by God to write a movie inspired by his crazy, dysfunctional family, but the Devil has his own devious plans in this hilarious spoof comedy.

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‘Cabaret’ Review: What Good Is Screaming Alone in Your Room?

Eddie Redmayne and Gayle Rankin star in a buzzy Broadway revival that rips the skin off the 1966 musical.

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By Jesse Green

Just east of its marquee, the August Wilson Theater abuts an alley you probably didn’t notice when last you were there, perhaps to see “Funny Girl,” its previous tenant. Why would you? Where the trash goes is not usually part of the Broadway experience.

But it is for the latest revival of “Cabaret,” which opened at the Wilson on Sunday. Audience members are herded into that alley, past the garbage, down some halls, up some stairs and through a fringed curtain to a dimly lit lounge. (There’s a separate entrance for those with mobility issues.) Along the way, greeters offer free shots of cherry schnapps that taste, I’m reliably told, like cough syrup cut with paint thinner.

Too often I thought the same of the show itself.

But the show comes later. First, starting 75 minutes beforehand, you can experience the ambience of the various bars that constitute the so-called Kit Kat Club, branded in honor of the fictional Berlin cabaret where much of the musical takes place. Also meant to get you in the mood for a story set mostly in 1930, on the edge of economic and spiritual disaster, are some moody George Grosz-like paintings commissioned from Jonathan Lyndon Chase . (One is called “Dancing, Holiday Before Doom.”) The $9 thimbleful of potato chips is presumably a nod to the period’s hyperinflation.

This all seemed like throat clearing to me, as did the complete reconfiguration of the auditorium itself, which is now arranged like a large supper club or a small stadium. (The scenic, costume and theater design are the jaw-dropping work of Tom Scutt.) The only relevant purpose I can see for this conceptual doodling, however well carried out, is to give the fifth Broadway incarnation of the 1966 show a distinctive profile. It certainly does that.

The problem for me is that “Cabaret” has a distinctive profile already. The extreme one offered here frequently defaces it.

Let me quickly add that Rebecca Frecknall’s production , first seen in London , has many fine and entertaining moments. Some feature its West End star Eddie Redmayne, as the macabre emcee of the Kit Kat Club (and quite likely your nightmares). Some come from its new New York cast, including Gayle Rankin (as the decadent would-be chanteuse Sally Bowles) and Bebe Neuwirth and Steven Skybell (dignified and wrenching as an older couple). Others arise from Frecknall’s staging itself, which is spectacular when in additive mode, illuminating the classic score by John Kander and Fred Ebb, and the amazingly sturdy book by Joe Masteroff.

But too often a misguided attempt to resuscitate the show breaks its ribs.

The conception of Sally is especially alarming. As written — and as introduced in the play and stories the musical is based on — she is a creature of blithe insouciance if not talent, an English good-time gal flitting from brute to brute in Berlin while hoping to become a star. Her first number, “Don’t Tell Mama,” is a lively Charleston with winking lyrics (“You can tell my brother, that ain’t grim/Cause if he squeals on me I’ll squeal on him”) that make the Kit Kat Club audience, and the Broadway one too, complicit in her naughtiness.

Instead, Frecknall gives us a Sally made up to look like she’s recently been assaulted or released from an asylum, who dances like a wounded bird, stretches each syllable to the breaking point and shrieks the song instead of singing it. (Goodbye, Charleston; hello, dirge.) If Rankin doesn’t sound good in the number, nor later in “Mein Herr,” interpolated from the 1972 film, she’s not trying to. Like the cough syrup-paint thinner concoction, she’s meant to be taken medicinally and poisonously in this production, projecting instead of concealing Sally’s turmoil.

That’s inside-out. The point of Sally, and of “Cabaret” more generally, is to dramatize the danger of disengagement from reality, not to fetishize it.

The guts-first problem also distorts Redmayne’s Emcee, but at least that character was always intended as allegorical. He is the host to anything, the amoral shape-shifter, becoming whatever he must to get by. Here, he begins as a kind of marionette in a leather skirt and tiny party hat, hiccupping his way through “Willkommen.” Later he effectively incarnates himself as a creepy clown, an undead skeleton, Sally’s twin and a glossy Nazi.

Having seen Frecknall’s riveting production of “Sanctuary City,” a play about undocumented immigrants by Martyna Majok , I’m not surprised that her “Cabaret” finds a surer footing in the “book” scenes. These are the ones that take place in the real Berlin, not the metaphorical one of the Kit Kat Club. She is extraordinarily good when she starts with the naturalistic surface of behavior, letting the mise en scène and the lighting (excellent, by Isabella Byrd) suggest the rest.

And naturalism is what you find at the boardinghouse run by Fräulein Schneider (Neuwirth), a woman who has learned to keep her nose down to keep safe. Her tenants include a Jewish fruiterer, Herr Schultz (Skybell); a prostitute, Fräulein Kost (Natascia Diaz); and Clifford Bradshaw (Ato Blankson-Wood), an American writer come to Berlin in search of inspiration. Soon Sally shows up to provide it, having talked her way into Cliff’s life and bed despite being little more than a stranger. Also, despite Cliff’s romantic ambivalence; over the years, the character has had his sexuality revamped more times than a clownfish.

The Schneider-Shultz romance is sweet and sad; neither character is called upon to shriek. And Rankin excels in Sally’s scenes with Cliff, her wry, frank and hopeful personality back in place. The songs that emerge from the boardinghouse dramas are not ransacked as psychiatric case studies but are rather given room to let comment proceed naturally from real entertainment. Rankin’s “Maybe This Time,” with no slathered-on histrionics, is riveting. It turns out she can properly sing.

The interface between the naturalism and the expressionism does make for some weird moments: Herr Schultz, courtly in a topcoat, must hug Sally goodbye in her bra. But letting the styles mix also brings out the production’s most haunting imagery. The intrusion of the Nazi threat into the story is especially well handled: first a gorgeously sung and thus chilling version of “Tomorrow Belongs to Me,” then the swastika and then — well, I don’t want to give away how Frecknall stages the scene in which Schultz’s fruit shop is vandalized.

That so many of these moments arise from faithful attention to the original material should be no surprise. “Cabaret” hasn’t lasted this long for nothing. Created at the tail end of Broadway’s Golden Age, it benefited from the tradition of meticulous craftsmanship that preceded it while anticipating the era of conceptual stagings that followed.

All this is baked into the book, and especially the score, which I trust I admire not merely because I worked on a Kander and Ebb show 40 years ago. That the lyrics rhyme perfectly is a given with Ebb; more important, they are always the right words to rhyme. (Listen, in the title song, for the widely spaced triplet of “room,” “broom” and, uh-oh, “tomb.”) And Kander’s music, remixing period jazz, Kurt Weill and Broadway exuberance, never oversteps the milieu or outpaces the characters even as it pushes them toward their full and sometimes manic expression.

When this new “Cabaret” follows that template, it achieves more than the buzz of chic architecture and louche dancing. (The choreography is by Julia Cheng.) Seducing us and then repelling us — in that order — it dramatizes why we flock to such things in the first place, whether at the Kit Kat Club or the August Wilson Theater. We hope, at our risk, to forget that, outside, “life is disappointing,” as the Emcee tells us. We want to unsee the trash.

Cabaret At the August Wilson Theater, Manhattan; kitkat.club . Running time: 2 hours 45 minutes, with an optional preshow.

Jesse Green is the chief theater critic for The Times. He writes reviews of Broadway, Off Broadway, Off Off Broadway, regional and sometimes international productions. More about Jesse Green