A Hologram For The King, 2016.
Directed by Tom Tykwer.
Starring Tom Hanks, Alexander Black, Sarita Choudhury, Tom Skerritt and Ben Whishaw.
SYNOPSIS:
Top flight businessman Alan Clay (Tom Hanks) has fallen on hard times and takes a job with an IT company to recoup his losses. He’s put in charge of the team bidding for a massively lucrative contract in Saudi Arabia but, once there, he faces numerous obstacles in preparing the vital presentation. And that’s while trying to cope with his own personal problems.
Tom Hanks returns to his familiar Everyman role in this adaptation of David Eggers’ best-selling novel. And, as he can play that type of part in his sleep, director/writer Tom Twyker has made sure he has a back-story to chew on. To the outside world, he’s Mr Positive, nothing appears to get him down, but inside he’s in turmoil. Divorce has shattered him, he’s been knocked back by professional failure, which included having to sack an entire workforce, and he’s concealing what could be a serious health problem.
So he’s taken a job with is essentially beneath him and fetches up in Saudi Arabia, under pressure to win a high profile contract. But he’s not the only one who’s not what he seems. While his team are beavering away on the presentation in a massive tent in the desert, he spends much of his time in Jeddah, the second city in the Kingdom. From the outside, it looks like any other: skyscrapers, shops and restaurants. It could be anywhere. Having taken it at face value, Hanks soon discovers the opposite is true. The Saudis he deals with professionally are unfailingly polite but, because he doesn’t know how their unfathomable system works, he’s stonewalled at every turn. He struggles to understand how anything gets done, yet it clearly does and on a grandiose scale. And their ambitions for a coastal stretch of desert are on the same level, hence the IT contract.
Cue plenty of cultural clashes and fish-out-of-water moments, with Hanks as the fish, most of them providing the lion’s share of the film’s humour. He suffers from jet-lag and constantly oversleeps, so hires a car with a driver, Hassan (Alexander Black), who becomes his unofficial guide and interpreter. The car is a near wreck, has a nodding camel on the dashboard and Hassan’s choice of music comes from the West. His English is near-perfect too, as is his savvy understanding of westerners, and the scenes between him and Hanks are decidedly twinkly. Black is surprisingly convincing in what could so easily have been a caricature of a role, although sadly he hardly appears in the second half of the film. And it’s the poorer for it.
A Hologram For The King is essentially a meander through the desert in the amiable company of Hanks while he sorts his life out. And “meander” is the operative word as far as the storyline is concerned. For a while, it’s all about getting the job done in the middle of the desert, then we’re taken on a detour as he accompanies Hassan on a family visit. Then it’s back to getting the job done, until another tangent comes along, this time visits to the hospital and a developing relationship with a lady doctor. It’s all wrapped up very quickly and neatly, but leaves you with the distinct impression that there are a number of interesting stories knocking around but none of them are fully developed. It’s all down to Hanks to keep things afloat, which makes it very likeable and diverting, but also very patchy.
And if you spotted Ben Whishaw’s name on the cast list, you might be wondering what part he plays in the proceedings. He’s the hologram! And it’s a criminal waste.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Freda Cooper. Follow me on Twitter, check out my movie blog and listen to my podcast, Talking Pictures.
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Originally published May 17, 2016. Updated November 13, 2019.
