Paint-by-numbers directing is a specialty of Mira Nair (The Namesake, Monsoon Wedding). In her new film, The Reluctant Fundamentalist, she adapts the novel by Mohsin Hamid by taking one step forward with a noteworthy performance by Riz Ahmed as a Pakistani Princeton student who makes good working on Wall Street. Unfortunately she takes two steps backward by adding to the novel a largely bogus thriller element, and a superfluous romance with a dour Kate Hudson.
Ahmed almost saves the film. We witness in extended flashback his meteoric rise in the business world once his genius acumen encounters the mentorship of his new boss, Kiefer Sutherland. They go around the world assessing the value of companies and, just as often, breaking them apart. In scenes that seem interminable, he cozies up to art student Hudson. Back in the present, he is a Pakistani professor suspected of kidnapping a CIA agent, who is still at large. Spanning much of the film, his interview with a journalist (Liev Schreiber) is genuinely suspenseful. Did he or didn’t he? Hard to tell. Then, entering the scene like a sledgehammer, is a surveillance of the interview by CIA agents ready to pounce with a raid. In the novel the Schreiber character was ambiguous; here, we soon find out the side he is on. If she really felt she needed a thriller tacked on, at least make it a good one. The implausible finale is close to a joke.
When 9/11 happens and Ahmed’s world starts to cave in around him, the film sizzles. Previously friendly co-workers begin to look at him suspiciously. He’s asked walking through an airport to come in for questioning. He’s jailed in a case of mistaken identity after walking out of his work building. We see the glove coming out for the strip search. Yet the dramatic tension depicted in these scenes isn’t enough for Nair. In an absurd turn of events, Hudson, too, has a racist, malevolent surprise up her sleeve. Not leaving well enough alone, Nair swells her film to 140 minutes. Scenes with Ahmed wrap him in a glow so we don’t miss the point that he is a character to be admired. Even an exciting performance by Sutherland eventually gets lost in the shuffle.
Finally, there is a parallel drawn between greedy capitalism and Islamic fundamentalism. Sutherland’s rants don’t sound much different from those of a radical sheikh, and the damage done by his company can easily be viewed as a reason for the roots of radicalism. Had we not been hit over the head by the thriller and Kate Hudson elements of the film, we may have gotten that message clearer. Like much of the rest of the film, it’s blurred by bloatedness.
2.5 Two Very Fine Performances Stymied By A Misguided Film (out of 5)