Overview
Alan Clay, a struggling American businessman, travels to Saudi Arabia to sell a new technology to the King, only to be challenged by endless Middle Eastern bureaucracy, a perpetually absent monarch, and a suspicious growth on his back.
A movie about cultures colliding, midlife crises, flailing careers, fear, hope, and love with Tom Hanks heading the cast – sounds like a winner. Unfortunately the major themes get burried deep under the Arabian sand in this mostly bland and uninspired movie about a salesman waiting for months to be able to present his company’s 3D teleconfering technology to the Saudi King. Things happen during this wait, but alas not enough to make it exciting.
Salvaged to some extent by the watchable Hanks and Sarita Choudhury as his doctor Zahra, and a nice enough if predictable happy ending, it still leaves you wondering why this movie was made. There is so much more potential in these themes and there must be so many better scripts to throw money & Hanks at.
★★½
