'The Kite Runner' comes to the screen as a mixed blessing

Hollywood has delivered a whole cycle of films in 2007 related, in one way or another, to the Mideast Crisis ("In the Valley of Elah," "The Kingdom," "Lions for Lambs," "A Mighty Heart"), and, so far, audiences have ignored every one of them.

The last gasp of the cycle, "Charlie Wilson's War" (opening Dec. 21) and this week's "The Kite Runner," may fare better. "Wilson" has the star-power of Tom Hanks and Julia Roberts, and "Kite" is based on a novel that has been a New York Times best-seller for over two years.

"Kite" also has been a major news story in recent months after four of its young Afghan stars received death threats and the studio had to delay the opening of the film so it could set the boys' families up with new lives in the friendlier United Arab Emirates.

Also, in a number of ways, it has turned out to be a sensitive, touching movie, and it's likely to convince anyone who may doubt it that there's no peaceful way to live in the world with the Taliban.

Even so, the movie version of "The Kite Runner" is only a qualified success. It suffers in its transition from page to film, and my guess is that its devoted fan base will think the adaptation misses the mark by more than a few inches.

It's the story of Amir, whom we meet during his boyhood in Afghanistan of the late '70s, when he's the happy, kite-flying son of a prosperous Kabul architect and best friends with Hassan, a boy his age who's the son of one of the household servants.

The idyllic friendship ends when Hassan, a member of a scorned ethnic group, is brutally raped by a group of older boys. Amir fails to prevent it, and then -- presumably out of guilt, though it's not clear -- he rejects his friend and even sabotages his place in the household.

Soon after, the Soviets invade. Amir and his father flee the country and make their way to the States. Years pass; Amir grows up in the Afghan community of Oakland, goes to college, gets married to another Afghan emigre (Atossa Leoni) and becomes a novelist.

And just when his adult life has gelled into success and happiness, a voice from his past comes from the now-Taliban-controlled Afghanistan. He's hit with a surprise revelation, and an opportunity to atone for his past launches him into a high adventure.

As this (nonlinear) story unfolds, the kite-flying sequences make a splendid visual metaphor and the movie grabs us with its striking visuals and poignant, Oscar-worthy performances by Homayon Eashadi (as Amir's father) and Ahmad Khan Mahmidzada (as the young Hassan).

But, unlike the novel, the script can't get inside Amir's head, so what he's thinking and feeling during and after that crucial childhood rape of his best friend is never clear. His cowardly actions are not just unsympathetic, they're unfathomable.

Thus, halfway through the movie, we lose all empathy and connection with him as a compelling protagonist. He becomes as remote as the hateful hero of the bad movie version of "Bonfire of the Vanities."

A gifted actor or even a strong star presence might have been able to bridge this gap, but Khalid Abdalla (one of the hijackers of "United 93") walks through the role of the adult Amir with so little hint of a tortured soul that he seems to have no tragic dimension whatsoever.