Kandahar

Right now you can watch Kandahar in Australia on Amazon Prime Video, and in the US on Hulu and Kanopy — and it earns its twists rather than manufacturing them. The runtime earns every minute, with nothing here that feels like padding. 1,272 viewers have already rated it on TMDB — the kind of consensus that does not happen by accident. Gerard Butler's performance alone is worth the time investment. There is no real reason to keep putting it off — it is right there on Amazon Prime Video.

Kandahar arrived without much fanfare and built its audience the hard way — through word of mouth. The plotting gives Kandahar its backbone, but it is the characters you come back for. After his mission is exposed, an undercover CIA operative stuck deep in hostile territory in Afghanistan must fight his way out, alongside his Afghan translator, to an extraction point in Kandahar, all whilst avoiding elite enemy forces and foreign spies tasked with hunting them down. The writing gets a boost from Gerard Butler and Navid Negahban, who sell every scene they're in. It was released in 2023. Kandahar is at its best in the quiet scenes between the plot beats, where the character work actually happens. It knows exactly what it is, and does not try to be anything else.

Crime and mystery fans will find exactly what they are after in Kandahar. It does not lean on comparisons to make its case. The complete film is available and best experienced without too much prior knowledge of where it goes. Watch Gerard Butler work — it is a masterclass in the genre. Few crime dramas earn their twists this consistently.