You know that thing where Hollywood often releases two superficially similar movies in the same year? The most famous incidences are "Deep Impact" & "Armageddon" about asteroids threatening to hit Earth and end all life, and "Volcano" & "Dante's Peak", about surprise volcano eruptions in America. A personal favorite for me, is "Braveheart" & "Rob Roy", about Scottish historical badasses whose wives are assaulted by obnoxious lords, forcing them to go outlaw. I like that pair because my father & I saw back-to-back trailers for them (prior to a showing "Outbreak" ), both hilariously ending with the title character standing on a Scottish peak, with his kilt flapping majestically in the breeze. And more recently, there was "White House Down" and "Olympus Has Fallen", where a lone Secret Service agent/applicant has to defend the President from terrorists who take over the White House. Despite the former being more blockbustery and a summer release, the latter actually went on to become a trilogy, staring Gerard Butler.

Which brings us to the most recent example of this phenomenon, with "Kandahar" staring Butler and "The Covenant" staring Jake Gyllenhaal. The common thread in these is lone western operatives trapped in Afghanistan, with only a local interpreter, whose son has been killed by the Taliban, and now his service to the US has made him a target in his homeland and he needs to escape to America. And there is a Lothbrook from "Vikings" in it.

"The Covenant" has Gyllenhaal as the leader of an American unit looking for terrorist and bomb-makers in Afghanistan, obtaining a replacement, named Ahmed, for their lost interpreter, who is surly and temperamental, but effective at his job, and proactive, not simply repeating words, but making efforts to persuade the locals on behalf of his employers. But when he and Gyllenhaal's Sgt Kinley are cut off from the rest of the team and alone in enemy territory, with the American wounded, Ahmed has to get him to safety. When Kinley recovers from his wounds, he discovers that Ahmed had a price put on his head by the Taliban for his efforts, and has had to go into hiding with his pregnant wife. Johnny Lee Miller plays KKinley's superior officer, as does Alexander (Bjorn Lothbrook) Ludwig, and Antony Starr is a private contractor of dubious loyalty who may or may not help extract Ahmed. It was directed by Guy Ritchie and is pretty good. Ahmed is as much or more of a protagonist as Kinley, he's not just passive rescue victim.

"Kandahar" is a little more off, with less impressive talent, though the interpreter, Mo, is played by Navid Negahban, who has a slightly higher profile than Dar Salim of "The Covenant", probably best known as the Sultan from the live-action "Aladdin". Butler is basically doing his tough-but-caring guy who just wants to get home to his family, which he seems to play in about two under-the-radar action movies a year. In this one, he is Tom, an ex-military contractor who is hired to play a small part in an operation to sabotage and destroy an Iranian nuclear facility, and, through a few badly-timed coincidences, finds all the heat of the operation coming down on his head, while he is out in the cold. Mo, likewise, had already gotten out of Afghanistan with his family, but came back looking for an in-law, and was hired by Roman (Travis "Ragnar Lothbrook" Fimmel), an in-country operative who seems to have gone slightly native, to assist Tom in scouting out a mission. The political leadership of Iran wants someone to punish for the sabotage, and so Iranian operatives, a Pakistan intelligence officer and various locals looking to sell them to the highest bidder all are hunting Tom & Mo.

The interesting thing about "Kandahar" is how it depicts the factional clashes in Afghanistan, which many people are aware make turning the country into a unified and peaceful state a dicey proposition at best, but in this case, we actually get a glimpse of how this factionalism plays out for people trying to navigate the politics for their own survival. The state itself being fairly weak, it is not surprising that the neighboring powers run operations there, but despite opposing the Taliban, not all our local allies there are exemplary or innocent themselves. Hilariously, at one of the greatest moments of peril for the main characters, ISIS literally rides up to the rescue. The Iranian and Pakistani antagonists are given humanity and are portrayed as men doing a job for their countries, not RIFs or fanatics or monsters.

Of course, both films have an element of chiding the US for its shortcomings, especially in doing right by these saintly heroes who collaborated with our troops, but also for meddling in the country's affairs. While the latter charge has some merit, the US WAS attacked by an international terrorist who was being sheltered by Afghans (and their Pakistani cousins). Unlike the Iraq War, which has been conflated with the Afghanistan operations, as part of the War on Terror, most people agreed going into Afghanistan was justified. An Afghan character literally says "Shame on you" to a westerner, because his country supported bad men locally, but in that same scene, he discusses and condemns his country's long history factionalism. In other words, this is not, unlike Iraq, a bunch of problems we created. All we did was stir the pot and alter which group of vicious barbarian thugs was on top at the moment, as the Taliban had managed to assassinate the best leader the country produced in at least the last 100 years or so, right before 9-11 suddenly made the place relevant. Also, regarding what, again, an Afghan character says is the nature of the culture and people, the idea that bringing entire clans of these people in huge numbers to the US is a good idea seems counter-indicated. I'm sure there are Afghan interpreters who are as upstanding, heroic and admirable as Ahmed and Mo are shown, but on the other hand, a lot of them were probably just looking for a quick buck, or a patron to help them settle old scores. Which, given their methods of getting what they want involve betraying their country and neighbors, does not speak highly of their appeal as potential Americans. But neither movie is all that preachy, despite their clear agenda, and are a decent enough viewing, especially if you are looking for an alternative to the big film of the week we are likely getting for the next three-four months.