A Hologram for the King

Tom Hanks is a businessman shipped out to Saudi Arabia to negotiate a deal with the King regarding a state of the art holographic communication systems. Any thought that it might have been easy is quickly scuppered – his team are in poor conditions, his contact is never around and his health starts to take a turn for the worse. In pursuit of the deal of a lifetime, he comes across a beautiful doctor (Sarita Choudhary) and Yousef (Alexander Black), a wise-cracking taxi driver, who help him re-evaluate his priorities and focus on what is really important. In many ways, A Hologram for the King is a story about confusion, perplexity and frustration – it doesn’t sound like it should make for a particularly enjoyable film, but the execution renders it as a gently uncomfortable comedy. This is largely down to the screen presence of Hanks, who employs a slightly darker and more down-on-his-luck version of his everyman persona but remains as engaging as always. Hanks in the anchor that buoys the film, and which helps make a film that could otherwise have been a forgettable and gentle drama in something a bit more special.

Reece Goodall