Does Our Hero John McDonald *EVER* Really Get It?

Treat Williams does a fine job playing an American who "always wanted to build things". He left the wife and family, flew halfway around the globe to a strange place, and now just wants to get to work doing what he does. Let's start crushing rocks and building the foundation. Can't get a rock crusher? Okay, we'll work around it. Jailed over a dispute? Fine. Let's forgive and forget and get back to the project.

Does he ever finally realize ... there IS no project? Never was. Just a scam from start to end, a con job to bleed a "rich" American contractor dry. Seems he never does. Each time his "hosts" fail to come through, he sees it as a setback, rather than what it obviously is -- proof that he's been had.

This really has nothing to do with any specific race or culture. (I love it when the Saudi court -- complete with lawyers yelling "LIAR!" at the defendant in a sophisticated display of Daudi justice -- surprises everyone by ruling in John's favor.). It's about good-hearted but naive people who have trouble understanding that there are crooks with no conscience that will take everything they can from you -- including your life -- just because they can. Although hard for me to understand, having lived on the planet a number of decades, I did really feel for John, who escaped with his life and freedom but otherwise lost everything.