Atlantic City Weekly

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The Kite Runner is a film that both soars like its kite metaphor on the air currents of good storytelling, and falls to earth when its credibility is cut out from under it. The film, based on the novel by Afghan-American Khaled Hosseini and directed by Marc Forster (Monster's Ball), is at its best when it is providing an engrossing look at a culture that is mostly known to Americans through the excesses of the Taliban. Putting a human face on the cultures that are currently being disrupted by war reminds Americans that we might not be seeing the agony of innocents mangled emotionally and physically on the nightly news, but that agony is taking place nonetheless.

Set in Kabul in 1978, just before the Soviet invasion, we are introduced to childhood friends Amir (Zekeria Ebrahimi) and Hassan (Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada) whose major passion is kite flying. They are a team -- Amir is the kite flyer and Hassan is the kite runner. This friendship, however, is also steeped in the racial pecking order all cultures seem to need in order to justify one race's superiority over another. Amir's father is a well-to-do Pashtun, a Sunni Muslim. His son is deemed worthy of education and standing in the community. Hassan is a Hazara, a Shia Muslim. As descendants of the Mongolians, they are not educated and are given subservient roles in the community. Hassan's father works for Amir's father, Baba (Homayoun Ershadi).

Baba has a great fondness for Hassan. His reason for this fondness is revealed much later in the story. Hassan has the guts to stand up to bullies and protects Amir. Amir needs that protection because he has no stomach for violence; he is a coward. Amir has overheard his father talking about his lack of guts. Hurt by these words, he will eventually twist that hurt into undeserving hatred toward the loyal Hassan. Not only does he do nothing when Hassan is brutally assaulted, he will lie about Hassan in order to dishonor him and rid himself of his own shame.

Getting rid of that shame will take years. When the Soviets invade, Amir and Baba escape to Pakistan and later to America. Amir graduates from college, falls in love, gets married and writes a successful novel. However, when his father's friend Rahim Khan (Shaun Toub) asks him to come back to Taliban-controlled Afghanistan, he goes against his nature and agrees to the trip. Khan tells him something about his father that shocks Amir, hoping it will inspire him to regain his lost honor and do the right thing by his friend Hassan.

It is this mission that one finds hard to swallow. The Amir we have known would not risk his life despite his guilt. That he could accomplish the mission of sneaking a child out from under the noses of the Taliban stretches credulity to the breaking point and beyond. It's an ending that makes for an emotionally explosive finish as kites fly again in the freedom provided by America, but there is a bit too much manipulation to manufacture that feel-good finale.

The Kite Runner has moments that are emotionally rousing and filled with poetry, but it also comes crashing to earth right before it sends us flying once more on the wings of hope, muting the beauty of that hope.

The Orphanage is a creepy, but not exactly haunting, Spanish haunted-house flick. It is about a woman who, along with her husband and son, comes to live in the former orphanage where the wife (played by Belén Rueda) once lived. Bad things happened here under the Franco regime. Her son begins to see children who may or may not be in his imagination. When the boy disappears, his obsessed mother is sure the house has something to do with it and is determined to find him, even when her husband has given up hope. Belén Rueda is terrific as the mother, and the film has several excellent jolts for those who prefer suspense to gore. However, the movie is not quite as good at the end as it was at the beginning. n

The Kite Runner **½
Directed by Marc Forster; rated PG-13

The Orphanage**
Directed by Juan Antonio Bayona; rated R

OPENING THIS WEEK

Cloverfield The partying people in Manhattan get a rude shock when a monster starts tearing up the town. Produced by J.J. Abrams of Lost and Alias fame.

Mad Money Diane Keaton, Queen Latifah and Katie Holmes star in this comedy about three women who form an unlikely friendship and decide to become bank robbers. Directed by Callie Khouri, the Oscar-winning screenwriter of Thelma and Louise.