Movie Review Kandahar

Kandahar (2023) 

Directed by Ric Roman Waugh

Written by Mitchell LaFortune 

Starring Gerard Butler, Navid Negahban 

Release Date May 26th, 2023

Published May 24th, 2023 

Is Kandahar a good movie actually? I am not sure. As a film critic, I've seen so many terrible movies starring Gerard Butler and many awful, racist, terrible movies set in the middle east. I am kind of numb to both Butler and the tropes of middle east set thrillers. And yet, I don't feel like I hated Kandahar. The film moves as a terrific pace, the action makes sense, the stereotypes are tempered by a relative even-handedness that criticizes American meddling in the middle east and the necessity American intelligence has to monitor the potential for uprisings that could threaten not just middle eastern security, but world security. 

You can argue in the comments about your opinions of American intervention in the middle east, the politics, the greed involved, the corporate interests and so on. The bottom line is, Kandahar seems to give a fair perspective on the matter while telling a compelling story of survival via the tropes of an action movie. The movie pivots on an American mission in Iran that destroys a massive part of Iranian infrastructure related to the Iranian nuclear program. Intelligence regarding who was behind the mission is leaked to other middle eastern countries and it places the CIA Agent at the heart of the mission in great peril. 

Gerard Butler stars in Kandahar as Tom Harris. Having posed as a phone company operative, he's actually used access to Iranian infrastructure to plant a bomb. In a tense scene, he narrowly misses blowing his cover through a clever bit of misdirection involving his phone, faster internet, and soccer. This set piece sets a tense tone that will rarely let up throughout the rest of Kandahar. Having narrowly escaped with his life, Tom looks to be headed home where his wife is waiting with divorce papers. He does have a welcome home from his young daughter waiting for him but when a fellow middle eastern operative, played by Travis Fimmel, offers him a mission that could pay for his daughter's college, he delays the trip home. 

This is a fateful choice. Just as soon as Harris is on the ground in Kandahar, investigating the disappearance of several female teachers taken hostage by rogue Taliban forces, Harris' cover is blown worldwide. A leak of documents has exposed CIA operations across the middle east, including, and especially, Tom's mission in Iran. Now, Tom, along with his interpreter, played by Navid Negahban, are being hunted by several opposing middle eastern interests, each with their own motivation for wanting to capture and kill the American spy and his interpreter. 

The key thing that I was moved by in Kandahar was the relationship that builds slowly between Butler and Negahban. There are elements here that we've seen before but Negahban is a very compelling actor whose presence seems to smooth out some of Butler's meathead tendencies. He's still mostly just a killing machine, but the story brings a bit of unforced nuance to Butler's motivations and his growing connection to Negahban is a strong root for the survival story. Director Ric Roman Waugh, whose work I have never cared for before, smartly builds a couple of dramatic set pieces that genuinely got my pulse racing. 

Find my full length review at Geeks.Media. 

Movie Review Moon Garden

Moon Garden (2023) 

Directed by Ryan Stevens Harris 

Written by Ryan Stevens Harris 

Starring Haven Lee Harris, Augie Duke, Brionne Davis, Maria Olson 

Release Date May 19th, 2023  

Published May 24th, 2023 

A very young little girl falls down the steps of her family home after witnessing a particular nasty argument between her parents. What follows is a stirring, deeply emotional and somewhat magical journey through the child's imagination as she tries to come out of a coma. That's the essential context of Moon Garden, a remarkably artful and moving horror drama that centers its action around the mind of a child in a way that is wildly unexpected, full of surprises, and at times genuinely harrowing and terrifying. 

Emma (Haven Lee Harris) cannot be more than 5 or 6 years old. She's lying comfortably in bed late one night when her mother comes in and tells her that they are going to 'chase the sunrise.' Context clues tell us that she's taking her daughter and leaving her husband behind in the middle of the night. The scene is filled with tension but not for Emma who, though tired, is ready for an adventure with her mom. Then, the scene takes a dark turn. Emma's dad hears the garage door opening and stops his wife and daughter from leaving. 

This is an exceptionally directed sequence. As tension filled as it is, writer-director Ryan Stevens Harris keeps us very specifically connected to Emma and her perspective. From Emma's perspective, two people she loves and trusts are acting strange and she doesn't quite understand it. Later, when she hears a scary noise, Emma goes running to her parents bedroom. Here is where she hears this nasty argument and in her haste to run away, Emma trips and falls down the stairs. 

The scene immediately following the accident is fascinating. Emma wakes up in a fantastical world. A place of wonder and of fright, loud noises and a strange, terrifying presence. A DJ booth rises from the ground and a ghostly pale-faced woman cranks up the noise as Emma plays with the buttons on the kit. We can hear dialogue, presumably from EMT's explaining Emma's situation. We can also hear Emma's frantic mother and equally concerned father as they trail behind the EMT's questioning their daughter's condition. 

The disorienting sound and visual style are remarkable. Writer-director Harris leaves you entirely unmoored, much like his leading lady. You are fully in Emma's perspective and you can't help but feel both her sense of wonder and her fear that she may never return to her family. Things then take a ghastly turn with the introduction of a villain, known in the credits as 'Teeth.' The villain has a blank, Slenderman-esque face, but most importantly, a terrifyingly large mouth inside of which are sharp monster teeth that we first glimpse sitting by themselves in some rundown corner of this unusual world. 

Find my full length review of Moon Garden at Geeks.Media

Horror in the 90s Mirror Mirror

Mirror Mirror (1993) 

Directed by Marina Sargenti 

Written by Annette Cascone, Gina Cascone, Marina Sargenti 

Starring Rainbow Harvest, Karen Black, Yvonne De Carlo 

Release Date August 31st, 1990 

Box Office Unknown 

There were a mere 6 movies directed by female directors in 1990. One of those films is this oddball horror movie about a haunted Mirror. It was Sargenti's first and only feature film credit. Soon after she moved to television features and picked up TV odds and ends until seeming to leave the business in 1997, at least according to IMDB. Regardless, she's notable for having been one of the few women to get the chance to direct a feature length horror film at a time when women were struggling to find a place behind the camera. 

It's a shame the movie isn't more memorable. Mirror Mirror is a shoddy, slapdash and odd film. The plot centers on a haunted mirror which uses some kind of demon magic to invade the mind of people who own it and causing them to kill. The demonic power presents itself as being on the side of the owner, allowing the owner to believe they are wielding some kind of magic power. Then, the killing spree begins and grows out of control until someone finally puts a black curtain over the mirror. Yeah, that's literally how this demon is defeated, that and... a good character making a wish? Maybe? It's a tad bit unclear. 

Mirror Mirror features a notable cast of horror convention staples including Karen Black as the mother of our main character, Megan, played by Rainbow Harvest. Alongside Karen Black we have Yvonne DeCarlo of The Munsters-fame. DeCarlo plays an antiques dealer who purchased the mirror only for the mirror to refuse to leave the home. She also takes a bunch of books written by the previous owner of the mirror. DeCarlo acts as a plot convenience/contrivance, someone to do the legwork of researching the mirror's evil for us in the audience and then dying tragically when she was needed most. 

Another notable horror staple is character actor William Sanderson who pops up in the role of a pet undertaker. The mirror happens to hate dogs and when the mirror brutally murders Karen Black's dog, Sanderson's uber-creep undertaker shows up and the two wind up hitting it off. She invites this man to dinner and things don't go well as Megan channels the demonic mirror powers to make Sanderson hallucinate that his food is full of creepy crawlies. He leaves and we never see him again. 

The co-lead of Mirror Mirror, alongside the memorably named Rainbow Harvest, is Kristen Dattilo as Nikki, a fellow outcast who serves as an early model of the role played by Amanda Seyfried in Jennifer's Body. Each film pits female friends against each other, a common theme in many genres when you think about it. At least they aren't arguing about boys, not the same boy anyway, but yeah, movies tend to want exploit female friendships for drama in a fashion that they tend not do in stories about male friendships.

Find my full length review of Mirror Mirror at Horror.Media