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I had high hopes for this film. Watching the trailers for months, I was excited by what I saw. The video for Kabul Faizal excited me even more. Then, the latest trailer for Kabul Express, a discussion with the actors about the film, excited me even more.

It is a shame that that excitement didn’t stay with me through the intermission.

It is not a bad movie, in fact it is good. Just not great. And, it should have been great. The elements for greatness are in place. Many great actors. An amazing landscape in a beautiful country. A story that has not yet been told. It is a shame that this movie didn’t live up to its potential.

The story is great, two young journalists wanting to establish themselves travel to post-Taliban Afghanistan to find a story, hopefully by meeting a Taliban warrior for an interview. Along the way they meet friendly Mujahideen warriors, pick up an Afghani tour guide, a Taliban warrior and an American reporter. It is a road movie, and in the tradition of so many road movies it is both funny and serious. The movie begins with 9-11 footage, segways into footage of Taliban Afghanistan (with an interesting narrative), and then shows our heroes as “prisoners”. Their first scene ends with an original technique to show a flashback of how they ended up blindfolded in the back of a pickup truck with armed warriors, and at this point I was EXCITED. The movie is original, topical, and funny, all in the first ten minutes! Too bad that momentum wasn’t sustained after the first half hour.

I began to lose excitement when they are shown the “Kabul Hotel”. I lost more excitement when they enter the outskirts of Kabul. Then more as they were traveling. I couldn’t quite vocalize what was bothering me about the cinematography. It wasn’t beautiful. It wasn’t breathtaking. It should have been. The shot of the Kabul Hotel should have taken my breath away with its bullet-ridden beauty and the barren landscape that surrounds it, but it didn’t. And, this continued throughout the film, shots that should have brought tears to my eyes were nothing more than pictures of buildings and landscapes. OM finally helped me find the words during intermission - Kabir Khan is a documentary filmmaker, and his matter-of-fact presentation of the land and the remains of what was once beautiful is presented as backdrop, where it should have been breathtaking and poignant. The remnants of what was once a beautiful city in a beautiful country should be allowed to tell their story, to add their weight to the message of the movie. That said, I know that Khan has this ability in him. Toward the end of the movie he delivers two stunning scenes that show that he has the ability to shoot beautiful footage.

But, the message was muddled as well. Here is an opportunity to write a realistic political dialog between the characters, but most of the dialog is forced and trite, with too many silent shots where the camera is focused on John Abrahams face, as if dialog isn’t necessary as you can see the emotions of the characters in his facial changes. Much of the interaction between Khyber (Hanif Hum Ghum) and Imran (Salman Shahid) is wasted on arguing who is responsible for the destruction of Afghanistan and the rise of the Taliban – no salient political points are argued, just two old men fighting over whose fault it is (yours, no yours, no yours). I have heard better arguments among children. There is an attempt to point the finger at journalists as being complicit in much of what is wrong with Western views of the Middle East as being motivated by money and book contracts, as well as to show the agenda of big media in hiding certain truths in order to sell a story, yet in both cases the message is lost, the first time because of the horrible acting of Linda Arsenio (Jessica), the second time because the dialog itself just isn’t compelling, especially coming almost immediately after one of the most heartbreaking and message-filled scenes of the film. There was so much opportunity wasted in this film by bringing these characters together to have meaningful conversations regarding capitalism, corporatism, militarism, religion, the place of the media – only pay lip service most of the time to these topics when they were addressed.

To make matters worse, I cringed every time that Jessica opened her mouth. There are a million American actresses with talent. How did he manage to cast one who can barely force out a line? I recently tried my hand at acting, worked with a coach when the director figured out how bad I acted (he really wanted me in the film, regardless of my lack of ability), and then got replaced at the last minute by an actor who had real talent. If I had been allow to debase myself onscreen by trying to act, I think I would have looked like her. And, John Abraham is wasted. In scenes he is great, in other scenes he is looking off into space with a half smile. Why wasn’t the director or the editor paying attention in the action scenes when he would be acting in one close-up, and then staring into the distance in the next. It was as if a decision was made to showcase his face instead of his acting by not cutting pretty boy shots out of the final footage. What a waste, because while his character was cast to be the straight-guy to his cameraman Jai (Arshad Warsi), and unlike the loquacious Jai, he was silent and observant, I don’t think he was meant to appear Prozac addled in action sequences.

Now that I have beat up the film, let me point out what is good.

Warsi, Hum Ghum and Shahid are all brilliant. I peviously only knew Warsi as “Circuit”, and will now be clearing some space for him on my Netflix queue this week as he made quite an impression on me.

When Khan does allow the film’s conversations and dialog to flow and become real, they are great. Imran (the Taliban/Pakistani) trying to express his feelings about his relationship with his daughter. Honest observations about Americans and America that aren’t jingoistic or sensationalistic. Discussions of the state of women living in post-Taliban Afghanistan. The humour is true – not forced – unlike much of the dialog that I had previously discussed. At times we are allowed to see the wonder and cruelty of life in modern Kabul through the eyes of Suhel Khan (John Abraham), and the scenes when he is unleashed and allowed to view and react are beautiful, informative, and in one case haunting. The road trip to the Pakistan border is an interesting lesson on local history, practice, and the dangers that await all travelers, from robber villagers to American war planes.

I am a political/news/history junky, and that is part of the reason I am so critical of movies like this, and why even through my criticism I love the fact that this movie exists. Even though I wanted more political/social discourse between Imran and Khyber, the fact that they had discourse at all is good enough for now. I love the fact that an Indian filmmaker honestly explored the Pakistani government’s relationship with the Taliban, both pre- and post- American invasion, without taking sides, and worked this political history into the film. I love his honest assessments of Islam – how the religion effects women living in that part of the world and the differences between Indian and Arab Islam – I learned some things I wasn’t aware of and for that alone I love this film. Khan’s backround as a documentary filmmaker may have hurt his ability to make an amazing film, but he has made a good film, and I think what saved this film from being horrible is that what he has learned from making documentaries allowed him to address topics in an original and fresh, as well as objective, manner.

If this were an American film, I would never watch it. This movie would be a patriotic piece of trash if made by an American; it would take sides and have characters reciting the same tired anti-American anti-Taliban anti-whateveristrendy propaganda to prove a point, regardless if it is made by a liberal or a conservative leaning filmmaker. What I loved about this film is the fact that it showed the humanity and reality and beauty and social devastation of a country that is underrepresented in film, that I got to take a road trip with four interesting people (Jessica isn’t interesting), to see and learn new things, to view the world for almost two hours through the lens of a South Asian filmmaker who delivered an interesting, new, and original, if uneven film. You may think I am hyperbolic by saying “new” and “original”, but in a world where so many use film as propaganda, where most “political” films have agendas and message movies are weak, attempting to tell a story using the backdrop of a devastated society and providing an honest, unbiased look at the polarizations caused by the political upheavels of 20th century Afghanistan is new. Kabul Express is no Battle of Algiers, but it is a good start for Khan. I am eagerly anticipating what he does next.