Movie Reviews

Based on the 2012 novel by Dave Eggers, A Hologram For The King is about Alan Clay, an American businessman played by Tom Hanks, who is sent to Saudi Arabia to close what he hopes will be the deal of a lifetime. While he waits for an appointment that keeps getting postponed, he befriends a local cab driver (Alexander Black), worries about a lump the size of a golf ball on his back and flirts with a Danish contractor (Sidse Babett Knudsen) before falling for a local doctor (Sarita Choudhury).

If that doesn’t exactly sound like a riveting movie, it’s because it is not. A Hologram For The King is the slow-paced story of a guy who is struggling with his life before finally learning that there are other ways to lead your life than how he was going about it back in the good old US of A.

Director Tom Tykwer tries to spice things up by attempting to make things look quirky, including three separate attempts at physical comedy where Hanks sits on a malfunctioning piece of furniture, but - like the hologram referred to in the movie’s title - falls short of making it feel real.