Kandahar (2023)Movies

“Kandahar,” starring Gerard Butler, is the sort of textureless action thriller that sounds like it’s been musically scored by a subwoofer.  The bass never stops booming as grizzled men frown and gravely whisper about matters of the utmost seriousness, and a simple race-against-time story is tied into impossibly confusing knots.  Director Ric Roman Waugh's drab film fumbles and grumbles through Iran, the United Arab Emirates and eventually Afghanistan as the hunt for CIA agent Tom Harris (Butler) intensifies.  “Kandahar,” to its credit, aspires to be deep. Geopolitics come up, as does the Taliban’s mangled interpretation of the Quran, along with ISIS and other aftershocks of American wars in the Middle East. Really, though, it is just another tiresome and impenetrably...