The Kite Runner
Two boys spend years together growing up as friends only to lose each other when one witness a brutal assault on the other and does nothing to stop it.
Film making 18/25
Cinematography 18/25
Audio 19/25
Bonus Features 15/25
Total 70/100
Amir is the son of a successful business man in Afghanistan and Hassan is the son of a servant that works for Amir’s father. Both boys enjoy years together as friends in the home of Amir’s father Baba but when Afghanistan enters a turbulent time Baba runs from the looting and killing of the Russian Invasion.
Hassan is a successful kite runner, having an instinctual sense of knowing where a high flying kite will fall after having its string cut in kite flying tournaments. When Amir wins the tournament and cuts the string of the last kite Hassan rushes off to find the kite and Amir follows when he fails to return.
Amir finds Hassan only to witness some bullies led by a boy named Assef raping him and Amir hides, pretending not to have seen it and thus starts the downfall of their relationship. Amir was so afraid of the bullies he did nothing and is now even more fearful of how his father will react to his not interfering in the assault.
Amir has been noticing the growing affection between Hassan and Amir’s father and this has been worrying Amir because he thinks Baba likes Hassan more than his own son. Amir is afraid and takes Hassan’s stoic silence about the event to be another reason to get Hassan out of his life so Amir pretends to lose his watch and it is found in Hassan’s room.
Hassan and his father leave after the Russian invasion begins so Amir and his father escape to America and begin a new life but not a very prosperous one. Amir and his father take on odd jobs and search out a living in the United States where Amir becomes a writer but his father only ends up working for low wages.
When Amir sees a friend of his father’s daughter he immediately falls in love and asks his father to be introduced to the girl and they eventually get married. Soon after their marriage Baba dies and Amir’s career as a writer takes off until he gets a call from his father’s old business partner and best friend that stayed in Afghanistan.
The old friend tells Amir that he knows of the assault and how Amir can make up for his past deeds, he needs to come to Afghanistan and find the son of Hassan and take him back to America. The man tells Amir that Hassan was actually his half brother, Amir’s father slept with a servant after his mother died and Hassan was born and taken care of by Baba in the only way he could.
Amir goes to Afghanistan and eventually finds the boy whose mother and father are now dead and has been taken by a Taliban leader. Amir finds the boy in the company of one of the leaders, Assef, who originally assaulted and raped his half brother Hassan all those years ago.
When Assef tells Amir he has to pay something for the boy after Amir tells him he is going to take the boy the thug starts to beat up Amir. The boy, Sohrab, picks up a small ball that was on the table that Amir crushed when Assef threw him on top of it and brandishes a sling shot at Assef.
Assef smarts off at the boy and the boy shoots him in the eye and then helps Amir out the window as the men who were told to go away by Assef are oblivious to the fight because of the loud music Assef turned on. Assef calls out to the other men who eventually hear while Amir and Sohrab escape over a wall and out to the friend who is helping Amir find the boy.
They race away under a hail of bullets and make their way back to America where Amir’s wife welcomes Sohrab to their home with open arms, one of the reasons is she has not been able to have a child with her husband Amir. A final scene of the film shows the General who is the father of Amir’s wife does not like Amir much due to his career choice as a writer finally gets his due.
When the General is having dinner with the couple and Sohrab is sleeping after his long trip and grueling time with the Taliban as a house boy the General makes a comment about that Hazara boy.
Amir stands up to the General and tell hims to have respect for the boy who is his nephew and never call him a Hazara boy in front of Amir again. The end scene has Amir showing Sohrab how to fly a kite and wins against another kite flyer in a quick fight to cut the string of the other kite.
The Kite Runner is a great film and very well written, a truly fantastic story brought to life in vivid detail and stunningly realistic scenery. The film was shot in China for many of the scenes that are from Afghanistan and the rest were filmed in the United States for a truly international film.
I thought the film was very good even with its liberal use of subtitles due to speaking in several languages and this was really the only drawback for me. The film had plenty of emotion and good use of the friendship of the two boys and how it lasts over the years but the film just falls short of being really great.
The film gets a little bogged down at times and the story is a bit muddled here and there at times but in the end you can enjoy the film and the story. The Blu-ray edition comes with a few additional bonus items but not all that much with an audio commentary, a look at the story and a making of feature.
The Audio commentary is from Khaled Hosseini, the author of The Kite Runner and David Benioff who wrote the screenplay and the two features include interviews from cast and crew. The Blu-ray edition has the same additional content the DVD does so it really does not offer more over that version except the better quality.
The Kite Runner is a great film but stops just short of being better, the Blu-ray version does have the better quality so may be a better choice for the higher definition.