A scene from "Afghan Luke"
Directed by Mike Clattenburg (Canada)
Trailer Park Boys director Mike Clattenburg moves to a larger canvas – the Afghanistan war – for this black comedy about journalistic cover-ups, hashish and corpse mutilation. Targeting the same absurdist, sardonic mode of David O. Russell`s Three Kings, the movie feels several drafts short of a tight script. Two Canadian reporters ( Nick Stahl and Nicolas Wright) return to Afghanistan when an editor spikes a story about Canadian sharpshooter cutting off his victims` fingers. Shot in the British Columbia interior substituting for Central Asia, the movie features a collection of cartoonish figures – a chirpy native guide, an airhead camp follower, and a fashionable warlord who wants to help his nephew break into rap music – that fail to be even interestingly offensive.
Sept. 11, 9:30 PM, Scotiabank Theatre 1; Sept. 14, 2:15 p.m., AMC 2.
Liam Lacey