Rating summary

Movie		3.5
Video		4.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		2.0
Overall		3.5

A Hologram for the King Blu-ray Movie Review

Can you see me now?

Reviewed by Jeffrey Kauffman August 9, 2016

A Hologram for the King sports one of the most distinctive titles in recent memory, but like its titular apparition, the film’s message is perhaps a bit diaphanous at times. The ever dependable Tom Hanks portrays Alan Clay, a salesman who has seen better days and in fact comes off a little like the hapless Gil Gunderson of The Simpsons fame, always sure the “next big thing” (i.e., sale) is right around the corner. Alan’s life is in a bit (and maybe more than merely a bit) of a tailspin, as the film begins detailing in a series of vignettes and flashbacks. Once a guiding light at Schwinn bicycles, Alan’s decision to have the bikes manufactured in China led to the demise of the American institution. Alan is currently working for a high tech firm which is seeking to install a holographic messaging system at a new city being built on a deserted (in both senses of the term) coastline in Saudi Arabia, hence the “king” of the film’s title. But Alan is also dealing with the after effects of a far from amicable divorce, as well as the fallout his declining career arc has created for his college age daughter, who now finds her studies on hold until Alan can afford tuition again. A Hologram for the King is an intentionally whimsical outing that has a lot going for it, not the least of which is Hanks’ assured presence, but the film veers wildly in tone and never seems to find a completely sure footing in the arid sands of Saudi Arabia.

The film begins with a lunatic sequence that finds Alan all over the place, including on a roller coaster, as he recites “Once in a Lifetime” by Talking Heads. It’s certainly the oddest “music video” you’ve probably seen lately, and it turns out it’s a dream (nightmare?) Alan is having as he flies to Saudi Arabia. When he wakes to a plane full of Muslim passengers reciting prayers in unison, it’s hard to tell if Alan has actually awoken or is in one of those “dreams inside a dream”. This tendency recurs throughout the film, where patently hallucinogenic moments will suddenly collide with “reality”. To cite just one example, much later in the film Alan is told to walk up to an apartment in the complex under construction in the “new” city where Alan hopes to install his holographic messaging service. As he ascends the stairs, he encounters a gang fight that is like something out of City of God, a moment which then just dissipates when Alan arrives at the appointed place and is ushered into a completely luxe abode that is like something out of a designer magazine.

Alan’s plight in Saudi Arabia is played largely for laughs, or at least amusement. There’s a running gag about his jet lag repeatedly causing him to oversleep so that he misses the shuttle to the far off staging area where Alan and his team hopes to display their wares for the Saudi King. That in turn brings Alan into contact with Yousef (Alexander Black), a goofy driver and tour guide who transports Alan to the site in his ancient 1970s era car. Yousef freaks Alan out by always checking to see if his car has been wired to explode before he turns the ignition key, though it turns out his concern is not related to terrorism but instead the more “mundane” possibility that the husband of a woman Yousef has been involved with might be seeking revenge. Yousef also has a love for American music, and so Alan’s trips to the new city are accompanied by the likes of Chicago or Electric Light Orchestra.

Other running gags, including a kind of ridiculous one involving various places Alan tries to sit, fall flat (literally and figuratively), but the film manages to eke out smiles if not outright laughs as Alan attempts to deal with an isolated location that has none of the requirements he needs to decently stage his technology. There are repeated run ins with a harridan receptionist who refuses to connect Alan with his Saudi counterpart, and a lot of the middle part of the film deals at least tangentially with the culture shock Alan experiences as he attempts to matriculate into the Saudi way of doing things. But A Hologram for the King starts dispersing its narrative energy in sidebars that include an aborted romantic fling with a woman named Hanne (Sidse Babett Knudsen) and, later, a Muslim doctor named Zahra (Sarita Choudhury) whom Alan consults about a nasty growth on his back. The first “relationship” seems like an “add on”, since it comes out of nowhere and is never really developed, while the second “love story” ultimately seems to be the point of the film, at least on a baseline emotional level, which then begs the question as to why it’s so haphazardly presented, with a longish “coda” of sorts attempting to wrap everything up in something approaching happily ever after.

If the “point” of A Hologram for the King remains frustratingly elusive (what's up with the evidently cathartic hunting scene late in the film?), the journey is often quite ingratiating, though writer-director Tom Tykwer never seems to know how to really plumb the depths of the story he’s attempting to tell. The moral of this particular story isn’t especially profound in any case, though those who have perhaps fewer tomorrows than yesterdays will certainly find Alan’s insistence that “there has to be time” more than a little resonant.

A Hologram for the King Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

A Hologram for the King is presented on Blu-ray courtesy of Lionsgate Films with an AVC encoded 1080p transfer in 2.39:1. The IMDb lists this as having been shot with Arri Alexa and Arriflex gear with both digital capture and traditional film evidently being used, which was then finished at a 4K DI, but the film has been tweaked in post to more resemble a homogeneous 35mm outing, and there's therefore a bit more "texture" involved in this presentation than might be expected. A slightly roughhewn appearance adds nice depth to the image and overall this offers an organically "filmic" look. The palette is a bit blanched due to the desert setting, but there's a nice accounting of the various shades of beige and white that tend to greet Alan on his treks. Nothing has been overtly color graded and detail levels generally remain quite high, even with some scenes shot almost directly into light or, later in the film, actual underwater sequences. There are some minor but noticeable issues that tend to imbue a lot of scenes with what almost look like yellow chroma anomalies that I'm ascribing to either compression or native capture, as the overall palette looks natural aside from these passing tendencies.

A Hologram for the King Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

A Hologram for the King features a nice sounding lossless DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 mix that gets an occasional workout when, for example, Yousef pumps up the car radio playing 1970s or 1980s era music. Otherwise, this tends to be a fairly subtle sound mix, one which achieves nuanced but noticeable immersion due to rather quiet ambient environmental effects (a slight breeze, the gentle lapping of waves, etc.) rather than any in your face (ears?) bombast. There is one crazy party scene that offers a riot of activity, at least when compared to the generally tamped down sonic ambitions of the bulk of the film. Fidelity is excellent and there are no problems of any kind to report.

A Hologram for the King Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

• The Making of A Hologram for the King (1080i; 19:56) is pretty standard EPK fare but does feature some decent interviews.


• From Novel to Screen: The Adaptation of A Hologram for the King (1080i; 11:53) is basically just a continuation of the preceding featurette, but includes (again) some interesting interviews.


• Perfecting the Culture (1080i; 10:14) focusing on trying to accurately depict the Saudi environment.

A Hologram for the King Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

Despite what may seem like a laundry list of reasons not to, I rather enjoyed A Hologram for the King, though I kept wishing Tykwer had tried to dig beneath the surface a little more (though some who have seen the film will know that Alan's "digging" beneath his growth's surface provides the film with a squirm inducing moment or two). The film coasts genially on the charisma of Hanks and its unusual setting, but anyone trying to extract a degree of profundity from the goings on will probably come away largely empty handed. Still, with expectations set at a reasonable level, A Hologram for the King is an enjoyable, sometimes goofy, and even occasionally moving film. Technical merits are generally strong, and A Hologram for the King comes Recommended.