Afghan Luke
This Afghan war dramedy struggles to distinguish itself.
SCREENINGS:
Sunday, September 11, 9:30 p.m.
Scotiabank Theatre 1 (259 Richmond Street West)
Wednesday, September 14, 2:15 p.m.
AMC 2 (10 Dundas Street East)
There’s ambition in this dramedy from the co-creator of Trailer Park Boys. But you can’t build a movie on good intentions. Nick Stahl plays the eponymous journalist (described as “Woodward and Bernstein rolled into one”), who heads to Afghanistan to uncover a mystery behind a sniper who is collecting the fingers of downed Taliban insurgents as war trophies. Accompanied and bank-rolled by his buddy Tom (The Wild Hunt’s Nicolas Wright), who sputters in his role as comic relief, Luke treks into Afghanistan with guide and translator Mateen (Stephen Lobo).
The war-crime murder mystery soon recedes, with Clattenburg taking our wily reporters on a dusty slog through 10 year’s of War in Afghanistan headlines. We learn that heroin and hashish are cash crops, that it’s hard to tell the difference between the good guys and the bad guys, that the country needs better plumbing and sanitation, and a whole bunch of other stuff we already know. Where a better film would have embedded us, like the journalist, with the troops fighting in Afghanistan, Luke leans on exposition to get us up to speed. Characters are always asking what certain localisms or pieces of military slang mean. Add to this thick-headedness all the flat comedy (including a USO bar that has a happy hour and a pointless Lewis Black cameo), and Afghan Luke sags. Not even the fine performances (from Lobo, especially) and Clattenburg’s impressive directorial glean can elevate it.