Kite that fails to fly

Marc Foster's deeply sentimental treatment of Khaled Hosseini's bestseller is so thoroughly beige it ought to feature on a Dulux colour chart.

For Foster it seems the source material is some kind of sacred text; at no stage does he allow the story, the struggle of two Afghan men to reconnect after a traumatic childhood incident, to actually come to life.

The central character Amir is played as such a drip by Zekiria Ebrahimi you don't really care about him.

And Foster's odd indulgence of sexism and homophobia - which caused controversy in Afghanistan - irks too, but what really does for The Kite Runner is its unremitting, tedious worthiness.

The Kite Runner
Cert: 12A