A Hologram for the King (2016)

Some things I liked some I did not.

Pretty Good

Masterful Movie

At first rather annoying in its heavy emphasis on reenactments, this movie ultimately proves fascinating, simply because the complicated, highly dramatic tale it tells still almost defies belief.

FIrst, great job Mr Hanks and the whole team! Second, I love to see religions being openly and politely/nicely/lovingly challenged into pondering how sometimes they kill everything that is human in us. Nothing brutal here, so fear not and proceed. Third.... showing love is perhaps a virtue we need more than anything in our modern hectic society. I say that in regard to all the unthinking, senseless, sad and unreasonable amount of HATE people unleash out there, and in regard to the NEGATIVE comments on this movie - PLEASE DON'T MIND THEM, just watch this really nice decent lovely piece, and judge for yourself, or better yet, let yourself be taken on a nice Hanks ride, give judgement a break for once :) . I will say no more. Enjoy!

One of those European films that chooses an American star to look more acceptable for American audiences, German Director Tom Tykwer's "A Hologram for the King" still looks irredeemably continental, with all the pluses and minuses that that entails.Basically, that means visually interesting, thought-provoking, weird, and not always seeming to make perfect sense!Primarily, Hanks plays (pretty straight, if with moments of comedy) a US businessman working at high level in sales, whose life has been uneven and seems to have gone into a bit of a downward spiral as middle age takes hold. Tellingly, and perhaps as a highlight of this film, Hanks's face glues on a broader and broader smile as he meets his more-youthful team each day, notwithstanding the weird and trying circumstances all are facing as they set up - VERY slowly - to make a high-tech sales pitch in Saud Arabia.Also importantly, our man Alan Clay is both a purveyor and a victim of globalisation, and this topic looms large a couple of times in the film (including at its - again telling - end). Globalisation has put a barrier between Alan and his traditionalist father and is of course what explains Alan's globetrotting in the first place. He is present in countries with Western-looking hotels and advertising hoardings on the surface, but with actually an entirely different culture just (a few millimetres) below that surface.Where "weird" is concerned, well that word is liable to arise from time to time in the watcher of this film (most especially on the scene of a party for diplomats who apparently respond to the strain of their somewhat repressive posting by abandoning absolutely all inhibitions!) But of course the weirdness does not stand in the way of what can at times be absolutely beautiful filming, featuring many scenes of simply gorgeous places where the desert meets the sea.Except that it is not THAT desert and not THAT sea, for this piece is filmed in Morocco (and Egypt), but only a little in Saudi; and that's a deflating discovery, as a key pleasure for the filmgoer is to cogitate on what Saudi Arabia is like. The best we can do here is imagine ... on the basis of concocted Arabia-like locations, and that's a great pity.Presumably, the distance from the true locations offered the artistic distance necessary to achieve the somewhat negative and critical portrayal that we get here, of Saudis as haughty, enigmatic, unpredictable, unreliable (at least from a Western point of view), restricters of rights, users of the death penalty and so on ... as well as of course super-rich! In turn, their kingdom is portrayed here - perhaps authentically - as an edgy place in which various people fear various things, but also endlessly try to "get round" impositions. There's thus considerable hypocrisy on show, to add to the other depicted downsides.Certainly, the first few semi-comedic scenes of the film are intended to show us how completely alienated the Hanks character Alan may be feeling in this new world. But helping him bridge the gap is driver and guide Yousef - a pleasantly dodgy character who offers a sympathetic highlight of the film ... but is in fact played by New York-born Alexander Black!Now that is another somewhat weird circumstance.And yet all this is the strange new world the Hanks character ultimately chooses to live and work in, having fallen in love with a lady doctor who treats his afflictions physical and mental. (And since said doctor is played by London-born Sarita Choudhury, who is half-Indian, we are again being presented with something that is not quite what it is making out to be).Now does the whole possibly hang together as a story? Not really, for how could it?And naturally, some of this is down to Dave Eggers, who wrote the original novel (as he also wrote the in-some-ways-very-innovative "The Circle", whose screen version also features Hanks).However, a certain amount of pleasure (and cross-cultural enlightenment) is to be had as we follow Alan through the aforesaid, pretty unlikely transition, hence I'm risking a 7 for an effort that is fairly unique (though ever-so-slightly recalling the (better?) 2011 film-of-the-book "Salmon Fishing in the Yemen").

Its not Saudi arabia They are shooting in a desert Saudi Arabia is not a desert There is no prayer at 9 am And the prayer call were in 9 am?

Despite the poor reviews, I really enjoyed the film; my company as well. Desperate, defeated Tom Hanks struggles to win his successful life back in Saudi Arabia. And that's where the interesting part starts. Although most scenes were filmed in Morocco, it gives the viewer a good perspective of life in this ultra conservative country for expats (and for wealthy locals). The desert, the marketing, the secret parties, the camouflaged alcohol, the foreign workers.. I don't see why most people disliked it, but I would happily watch it again.