Blu-ray Movie Reviews

In Kabul, before the Russians invaded or the Taliban held forth, many of the young people in the city flew kites. Standing on rooftops and controlling their craft with amazing dexterity, they would try to cut the string of each other's kite and send it fluttering to the ground, so that someone could run after the prize. Hence, the kite runner.

Amir, a child from a well-off family, is best friends with Hassan, the son of his father's servant. Amir flies kites, and Hassan is his runner. During one such run, some older boys sexually assault Hassan; Amir witnesses this but does nothing to help his friend. In the aftermath, the two boys grow farther and farther apart.

When the Russians invade, Amir and his father escape to America, where Amir falls in love and marries. One day, there's a call from his homeland, and he's invited to return to make his wrongs right. This is the crux of the movie, as The Kite Runner is a film about redemption - a film not only well told but brilliantly acted.

In a movie that's largely devoid of bright colors, only the vibrant kites stand out against an Afghanistan that seems unrelentingly bleak and yellow, the color of sand. The DVD picture captures this contrast vividly but with slightly less sharpness than you might expect. Certain scenes are quite detailed, so I must assume that when others are not, it's the filmmaker's intent.

The sound is really quite wonderful. Other than the brief scenes where the Russians provide some explosions, the audio channels are full of subtle environmental sounds and the evocative music score by Alberto Iglesias. None of these sounds gets in the way of the dialogue. (Each segment of the movie is in the language of its specific locale, so there are a lot of subtitles, and they're easy to read.)

The extras, though well intentioned, seem very light. The commentary by director Marc Forster, screenwriter David Benioff, and Kite Runner novelist Khaled Hosseini is mostly of interest in discussing the transition from page to screen. Otherwise, there are two short production featurettes and a public-service announcement from Hosseini asking people to help war-torn Afghanistan by contacting takepart.com.