A HOLOGRAM FOR THE KING
Dir: Tom Twyker (15, 97 mins)
Tom Hanks stars in the film version of Dave Eggers’ acclaimed novel reuniting with Cloud Atlas director Tom Twyker. Essentially a story about a man lost in a mid-life crisis finding himself again, Hanks plays Alan Clay, a down on his luck businessman, who is dispatched to Saudi Arabia to sell IT, ostensibly a holographic conference system to an uninterested Saudi king. It will be for a new city that is being built, but upon arrival Hanks’ finds the king uncontactable and the city barely constructed. He is aided and abetted by a wise cracking taxi driver (Alexander Balck) and finds himself falling for a doctor who treats him after an anxiety attack, Sarita Choudhury. Its culture clash, fish out of water stuff with a slight political agenda anchored by Hanks’ winning everyman nature.