The action takes place in 2013, in Afghanistan. Tom Harris, an American secret agent, carries out a perilous operation under a false identity. His intervention is crowned with success and causes the destruction of underground enemy installations. However, even as Tom has to leave the country, his true identity is made public in the wake of an information leak.
Accompanied by Mohammad, a translator who, too, was acting under an assumed name, Tom plunges into the desert in the direction of an old American base where, perhaps, the CIA can help them. Between espionage, thriller and pure action film, Mission Kandahar is quite a pleasant surprise.
Indeed, Ric Roman Waugh’s film turns out to be rhythmic, well acted and surprisingly plausible for a genre where plausibility is often shattered.
This last quality is no doubt attributable to the fact that screenwriter Mitchell LaFortune is himself a former intelligence agent in the American army who, among other experiences in the field, lived that of being in Afghanistan at the time of the outbreak of the Case of Edward Snowden’s revelations about various secret operations. Without naming it, Mission Kandahar clearly echoes this event.
As much in its dialogues between spies, bosses and factions as in its many developments, the film convinces most often.
It is true that the quality of the action sequences, also believable, helps to establish and maintain this impression of authenticity. We especially think of this night attack by helicopter: by alternating infrared vision and darkness, director Ric Roman Waugh greatly increases the level of tension in a passage that could easily have been banal.
With regard to the action scenes, while it is certain that digital tricks have come to improve the result here and there, these digital contributions are hardly apparent, which further contributes to the ambient realism.
Sober and fair game
On the downside, the film resorts to facile sentimentality in its otherwise laudable concern for humanizing the characters. A family conversation between the two companions in misfortune sounds particularly cliché.
The fireman’s outcome is also a bit of a patriotic pamphlet, a simplistic approach that the film nevertheless strives to avoid upstream.
A regular in chases and explosions, Gerard Butler finds his film director here.Angel Has Fallen (The final assault) and of Greenland(Greenland). His Scottish accent intact (aspect that we justify by making Tom a former MI6 agent now employed by the CIA), the actor delivers a performance in tune with the whole, that is to say sober and fair. His character never becomes a superman, but rather remains a professional struggling in a potentially inextricable situation.
In the role of Mohammad, Navid Negahban is excellent, maintaining a beautiful interiority which is colored with painful nuances during certain key moments.
In short, without being remarkable, Mission Kandahar is undeniably effective.