Warning: SPOILERS for Kandahar are in play. If you haven’t seen Gerard Butler’s action-drama just yet, you’ve been warned.
Nothing beats a proper, practical explosion. Some of the best action movies are built on that truth, resulting in record-setting feats that still wow the crowd to this day. Former stuntman-turned-filmmaker Ric Roman Waugh is a guy who understands that spectacle and loves delivering real action in movies like his latest team up with Gerard Butler, Kandahar. This time out, the director’s hunger for real action gave the man a hell of a story to tell, as Waugh filmed an explosion so huge, it actually shook a nearby airport.
The Practical Explosion In Kandahar That Shook A Nearby Airport
Towards the end of Kandahar, CIA operative Tom Harris (Gerard Butler) and his interpreter Mohammad Doud (Navid Negahban) are making a run for their lives. Trying to outfox several factions that are trying to kill them, the two partners try to make their way to the airfield that holds their ride out of enemy territory. Just when things look their bleakest, a powerful missile strike wipes out their pursuers, clearing the way for a safe passage.
Just in case anyone had any question about whether or not that scene was practically done, Ric Roman Waugh addressed that concern outright. As I spoke with him over a Zoom call on behalf of the film’s theatrical release, Ric laid out a good portion of the strategy that allowed him to capture such a gigantic and impressive feat.
Here’s what Kandahar’s director told CinemaBlend when asked about the sequence that, in his opinion, couldn’t have been captured anywhere but Saudi Arabia:
I don’t think the Saudis were quite ready for the level of explosions we were gonna do. Because, let’s just say that the airport was about 4 km away, and we shook the airport. These things that we were doing were very big. My special effects supervisor that I brought, Joe, that I’ve know for years, I mean this is the guy that did Pearl Harbor. We were doing Pearl Harbor level explosions out there. ... And then at the end of the movie, when we go into this huge gauntlet run, Fury Road style, all the explosions you’re seeing are absolutely real. That’s really Gerard Butler and Navid Negahban in the middle of those explosions, trying to drive and save their lives.
The “Joe” mentioned above is Kandahar’s special effects supervisor Joe Pancake, who did indeed work on the 2001 historical drama centered on that day of infamy from World War II. Considering director Michael Bay believes Pearl Harbor should have earned a Guinness World Record for its explosions, Pancake’s credentials as an expert in explosive action are more than valid.
Pancake is also a fellow veteran of the Ric Roman Waugh films Snitch and Greenland. So that relationship probably brought a special shorthand that came in handy when planning this big boom of cinema. Which is good to know, considering that Kandahar’s finale centerpiece could have been pretty lethal if not executed properly.
How Kandahar’s Massive Explosions Could Have Generated Real Danger
As mentioned before, four kilometers away from where Ric Roman Waugh was shooting with Gerard Butler and the rest of the Kandahar crew, there was an actual working airport. That very fact made the planning and communication around this feat all the more important, as Waugh explained further along in our conversation:
We had to have everything timed out. They knew exactly what was going on. We talked to the air traffic controllers, and were like ‘Let us know when you have inbound planes, ‘cuz we’re not gonna do anything. We’ll wait ‘till everybody’s on the ground,’ because we could down a plane with the size that we were doing. So we were in coordination with them, but I don’t think they expected the ground to shake in the terminal, and people are looking around wondering what’s going on.
Even with the best communications in place, the surprise and shock of the entire airport shaking as a result of practical explosions sounds like it was still quite a surprise for some. Thankfully, no one was hurt and no mishaps occurred during Kandahar’s explosive business, further showcasing Ric Roman Waugh’s knowledge as an experienced stunt performer coming into play in his directing era. That sort of attitude also explains why Waugh has such a fixation on including as many practical action as possible in his pictures.
The Importance Of Practical Action To Ric Roman Waugh
In our discussion about why practical stunts make more sense in a movie like Kandahar, Ric Roman Waugh made it abundantly clear that realism and stakes are valued components in his projects. If a car drops out of a plane from an unreasonable height, that driver’s dead, plain and simple.
Harkening back to his core beliefs as a creator, Waugh nailed this point to the door of his own filmmaking church, while also praising Gerard Butler as a collaborator, as follows:
My action is real. That’s what you’re getting with me. Some people call me old school, but for me if I’m gonna be authentic to the world I’m in, I want the action to look authentic as well. So it’s about doing it all for real. Like when you see a helicopter that’s acting like Jaws in the sky, there’s no CG. That’s a real helicopter, operating in the darkness. ... So it’s all done real, and I’m lucky to have a dance partner like Gerard Butler, who I trust really well around camera. He’s super talented. But then you get the emotional integrity of what the characters are going through, because you’re not cutting to the stunt guy that’s in the car, and you’re just watching the car go by. You’re actually in the car with these guys as all the explosions are going off and rocks are hitting the windshield, and they’re hopefully trying to make it without dying.
There’s going to be more opportunities for this director to blow things up with his recurring leading man safely in the line of fire thanks to the sequels Night Has Fallen and Greenland: Migration currently on the books. That last film mentioned is particularly of note, as its sale made a huge splash at 2021's Cannes Virtual Market; though from what we know about Greenland 2, there still isn't an official release date or production plan in place.
The same can be said for the latest Mike Banning adventure, which is probably a bummer for Has Fallen franchise super fan Robert Downey Jr. But much like a well-planned practical explosion, timing is everything, along with a heaping helping of patience.
While we may not know when to expect either of those Gerard Butler follow-ups, you can still see the latest action dance that Butler and Waugh have committed to film, as Kandahar is currently showing in theaters. And for all other movie-related inquiries for the rest of the year, our schedule of 2023 new movie releases has that information ready to go whenever you are.
