Gerard Butler isn’t leaving anything to risk in Open Road Films‘ new Kandahar trailer. With slick direction from Ric Roman Waugh (Angel Has Fallen, Greenland), Kandahar finds Butler playing Tom Harris, an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan. After his mission is exposed, he must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all while avoiding elite enemy forces and foreign spies tasked with hunting them down. The Kandahar trailer will be your bag if you enjoy practical effects, explosions, widespread deception, and danger.
Navid Negahban (Homeland), Ali Fazal (Victoria & Abdul), Travis Fimmel (Vikings), and Bollywood star Elnaaz Norouzi (Sacred Games) star alongside Butler for this intense thriller co-written by Waugh and Mitchell LaFortune, based on his own experiences as a military intelligence officer during the Snowden leaks.
Open Road Films acquired the U.S. rights to Kandahar in an eight-figure deal. The stylish action film reunites Butler with Waugh, who teamed for Angel Has Fallen and Greenland. Waugh is also the director of the criminally underrated 2017 crime drama Shot Caller. Directed and written by Waugh, Shot Caller stars Nikolai Coster-Waldau as a newly-released prisoner forced by the leaders of his gang to orchestrate a major crime with a brutal rival gang on the streets of Southern California. Lake Bell, Omari Hardwick, Jon Bernthal, Jeffrey Donovan, and Emory Cohen also star in Shot Caller, featured in our Best Movie You Never Saw series.
“Kandahar is an adrenaline ride made for the big screen. Gerry, Ric, the G-BASE team and Thunder Road have outdone themselves with this pulse-pounding actioner that our team is looking forward to bringing to audiences everywhere,” said Open Road Films’ Tom Ortenberg.
“What made Mitch LaFortune’s visceral script so compelling and unique for me is its authenticity and how he humanizes not just our heroes, but all the characters portrayed in a region that’s been locked in a perpetual cycle of violence,” Waugh told Deadline in 2022.
What do you think of the Kandahar trailer? Are you game for another action showcase from the dynamic duo of Waugh and Butler? Let us know in the comments below.