Pluskylang
Great Film overall
TrueHello
Fun premise, good actors, bad writing. This film seemed to have potential at the beginning but it quickly devolves into a trite action film. Ultimately it's very boring.
Marva
It is an exhilarating, distressing, funny and profound film, with one of the more memorable film scores in years,
euphoricorlando-1
I read the reviews and expected to hate this movie. Then I watched it. It was wonderful. I don't have expectations like other Americans. I have traveled overseas and seen some incredible historical places. Not everything that glitters is gold. A movie can be amazing without having the kind of Hollywood drama Americans have come to expect; no car chases and explosions and sexy criminal activity are required. A movie can be touching, weird, loving, surprising, fascinating, and gentle and still be profound. Hanks took this role because he knew the deeper story is genius. If you aren't an old soul, don't watch it. But if you love good storytelling, with a foreign culture and some rich cinematography, give this one a try. It's beautiful.
Louis
This movie just doesn't have it. The script writing was downright terrible. I cannot estimate who the target audience would have been. It releases itself of comical element very early on; the viewer is then stranded in the desert in a hopeless plot that even the producers seemed not to know where it was ending up. The film reaches for a solution to the nihilism of day-to-day life. Tom Hanks is a cinematic legend, but this is just some of his worst work.
Nancy Vandesiouri
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.
Sean Lamberger
Tom Hanks plays a fish-out-of-water businessman in this tale of culture shock, self- doubt and discovery. Set amidst the flat desert plains of Saudi Arabia, Hanks aims to mend his financial struggles by selling an absentee king on a gimmicky hologram- driven teleconferencing solution. Along the way, he encounters no shortage of roadblocks, be they personal, bureaucratic, cultural or medical, and eventually recognizes it as a growth opportunity. This is a conflicted picture, much in the same way our leading man plays a conflicted individual. Nailing down a steady tone seems difficult; the film opens with a loose, cartoonish musical number, then settles into a fast-paced corporate shuffle before cutting that loose and becoming a warm-hearted buddy picture and, finally, a contemplative romance. All this in a very trim, quick ninety minutes. Social norms are a steady focus, shining a flashlight on the immense gap between everyday life as an American and as a Saudi, but in the end it feels like those are only superficial, easily brushed aside to make way for a happy ending. That climax leaves us with dozens of loose ends, half-heartedly explored threads that are inspected and discarded like an inattentive child digging through his toybox. It all feels very loose and light, like we've read a summary but not the entire story. There's a compelling yarn buried somewhere within A Hologram for the King, but we only skim the surface. Interesting and original but quite limited.
