A Hologram for the King (2016) * *

Directed by:  Tom Tykwer

Starring:  Tom Hanks, Alexander Black, Sarita Choudhury

In most movies, Tom Hanks' everyman quality and humanity shines through to the point we would follow him on even the harshest journeys.     That idea is put to the extreme test in A Hologram for the King, an ambitious, but ultimately very distracted movie.     It can't wait to send Hanks on flights of fancy that deter from the main story, which is a middle-aged businessman's attempts at personal and professional redemption (or even resurrection).

Hanks' presence in the film is the only thing that makes it bearable.    If another actor were cast as Alan Clay, the lost protagonist of A Hologram for the King, the movie might have been completely irredeemable.     Hanks is not the problem.     The story is.    Or should I say the nonsense surrounding it.

The movie starts off on an intriguing note.    Talking Heads' Once in a Lifetime plays as Hanks speaks (or kind of sings) the lyrics.    It is shorthand for how Clay's life has suddenly fallen apart.    The film is off to an energetic start.    But it isn't to last.     Soon, Alan is shipped to Saudi Arabia to gain audience with the Saudi king in order to land a business deal with the Arab nation.     Alan's company is pitching meeting technology in which one or more of the participants could attend as a hologram.      Alan's career, which had faced its own hardships, hangs in the balance.    He was once a member of the board of Schwinn and made a catastrophic decision to outsource the manufacturing to China.     He is now a salesman selling silly meeting technology to governments.     His recent divorce left him without much money and a tenuous relationship with his daughter.    

If the movie had stuck to this plotline, we would have had something here.    Then, the movie introduces extraneous characters and subplots.      First is Youssef (Black), a cab driver who takes Alan daily to his worksite in the middle of the desert since he always oversleeps.    Alan and Youssef become friends and at one point they visit Youssef's family somewhere near Mecca, if I was keeping track of it right.     That sequence ends with Alan refusing to shoot a wolf during a wolf hunt.    I don't know what significance that has to the rest of the movie.

Alan also has to deal with a large, noticeable cyst on his back, which he attempts to lance and soon requires surgery to remove.     He falls for his doctor (Choudhury), who maintains an aura of mysterious sexiness which arouses Alan in more ways than one.     They will fall in love and at least give Alan some hope in the relationship department.     Then, there is the matter of Alan's Saudi contact who is never in town when he promises to be.     This hooks Alan up with a Danish associate and I could go on and on.  

Somewhere stashed in there is the deal with the king which begins to feel like an afterthought.     The movie is so busy being sidetracked that I wonder if it knew what it was really about.     All of this activity comes in at just under 90 minutes, but it played a lot longer.     There came a time when I wished the movie would just get down to business.     It is not a good idea to cast Tom Hanks adrift in a movie in which his natural charm is wasted.     I would have liked the movie's 90-minute running time filled in other ways than all of this whimsical stuff.