Review of A Hologram for the King

Attracted by the filming locations in Morroco and Egypt, which I both visited, and not having seen a Tom Hanks movie in a long time, I was ready to be charmed Well, we all age and the Tom Hanks on this screen is a long cry from 'Big' or 'Joe versus the Volcano'.but he pretty much got the ugly American business man right, though billing him as middle-aged at age sixty is stretching it. I doubt he will reach the ripe age of 120. As the story goes the movie "Lost in Translation" and the acting of Bill Murray did a much better job to portray the alienation a short time visitor feels in a different culture. I have not read the book this story is based on and after watching the movie I have very little desire to do so, but I hope that the book has a little more depth than what we see on screen. The author, the screen writer and the director are all males and consequently this unattractive, failing elderly business man still has all the women he meets falling all over him. At least the women are not twenty or thirty years younger, but only ten or twelve, the reason for that maybe because the director is European where age discrimination against women is not so bad as in the States. Nevertheless I doubt that a fifty year old Saudi Arabian woman goes skinny dipping on her first date, this is pure male fantasy as well as being assaulted by a middle aged woman at a party. I always enjoy watching Sarita Chowdbury though, naked or not. The happy ending seems as improbable as the guy with his driver accidentally ending up in Mecca. The idea behind the movie is interesting, the execution missed the mark. Again Sophia Coppola has done it much better, though I sometimes think she is a one trick pony because I have never seen a movie from her again which captivated me.. .