Jake Gyllenhaal puts valuable mileage on those huge haunted eyes of his in Guy Ritchie’s Afghanistan War drama.
Photo: Christopher Raphael/Metro Gold Mayeris the end credits, which feature snapshots of real-life American soldiers and their interpreters. As the film reminds us, more than 300 Afghan interpreters and their families have been killed by the Taliban, with thousands more in hiding, despite initial assurances that they would be given special immigration visas to the U.S. That lendsa veneer of truth, even though the film is not based on a true story.
The movie then switches registers again, as John returns home to pleasant Santa Clarita, California, to his family and his vintage car and truck-servicing business, while Ahmed is left behind in Afghanistan. Suffering from both post-traumatic stress and massive guilt, John tries to navigate the military and diplomatic bureaucracy to get Ahmed and his family U.S. visas.
Gyllenhaal puts valuable mileage on those huge haunted eyes of his during this section. John’s desire to get Ahmed out isn’t just an act of nobility or decency. He barely even remembers what happened in Afghanistan. His compulsion to save Ahmed is an indefinable debt and a gnawing burden — not an act of heroism or nobility, or even an opportunity to return a favor. “As if it wasn’t enough for him to carry me across the mountains, now I can’t get him out of my head,” John tells his wife.
That’s also why the film’s final act, which indulges in so many tired action-flick histrionics, feels like such a letdown, as if it’s been airlifted from a different movie. So much that you half-expect Guy Ritchie regular Jason Statham to show up. These final scenes are so disappointing that you may start to wonder what kind of film Ritchie really wanted to make with.
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