A Mighty Heart

LaserChoice · 05-29-2007, 10:48 PM

The trailer looks pretty good here. I have wanted to see a movie about the Daniel Pearl story since it happened, and they are finally putting one out. This movie looks like it may be from his wife's perspective. Angelina Jolie plays his wife in the movie, and she looks pretty sharp in the trailer. It comes out on June 22nd.

youtube.com/watch?v=A15l_F4ndKI

LaserChoice · 06-22-2007, 12:02 AM

Here, I found these on IFilm yesterday. You can actually see a bit of footage from the film here. Can't wait to see it Friday

ifilm.com/video/2857698
ifilm.com/video/2857699
ifilm.com/video/2857700
ifilm.com/video/2857701

Patrick Sun · 06-23-2007, 08:39 PM

Weirdly enough, I found myself not really rooting for Mariane Pearl in this drama retelling the events of the disappearance of journalist Daniel Pearl in Karachi, the search for Daniel, and the outcome, mainly through his wife's account of the ordeal (plus additional scenes she was not present for, but are depicted for the narrative's sake). It could have been the hormonal levels going berserk for a pregnant Mariane, but she just came across too unlikeable and almost too much like a stuck-up princess in spots.

In the hours after Daniel's disappearance is taken seriously, the film is very confusing, purposefully so. The measures taken to find info about Daniel's whereabouts raised an eyebrow or two from me. But it does give the viewer some understanding of the political climate of his disappearance and subsequent terrorist hostage situation.

Directorally speaking, it's very intimate, very chaotic at time, almost suffocatingly so at times. The characters were on edge for most of the running time up until the fate of Daniel Pearl is revealed, which gives some resolution to the ordeal, but the ending coda is somewhat optimistic in an uncertain world.

I give it 2.75 stars, or a grade of B-.

Raasean Asaad · 06-23-2007, 11:50 PM

I haven't seen this movie but it seems a lot like Beyond Borders or is at least marketed that way

Kirk Tsai · 07-07-2007, 01:37 AM

I had a different reaction than Patrick's towards Marianne. It wasn't that I was necessarily rooting for her, but that I thought she was a strong, admirable character in the film. The film unfolds very much like a police procedure film, leaving Jolie in a position to react. So in that limited way, I thought we got to know the character fairly well.

Dargis' review praised the film for being insistently political, yet my reaction leaving the theater was that though the filmmakers immerse us into the world, that environment was still only background. There is a sharp contrast between the house where the Pearls were staying and the outside city; the filmmakers make it a point to shoot the city often, and it leaves some food for thought, but I didn't find it very compelling.

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Ashley Seymour · 07-13-2007, 11:33 PM

My wife had read the book so she took me to the movie this week. In the aftermath of 911, there was concern that the Pakistanis might not be as motivated to pursue terrorists as was the U.S. Here is a story of a Pakistani police captain (Irfan Kahn) who is dogged in his investigation of a potential kidnapping of a westerner and turns out to be a very effective crime investigator. Mariane Pearl made a connection with him and he responds with an effort that is commendable in any police force. Of course there is the allusion to torture and the rounding up of suspects would have western human rights advocates go apoplectic. We can not know what actual techniques were used to obtain information as this can’t be told – as cannot the details of the capture, torture and murder of Pearl.

One interesting character treatment was of the single FBI agent who came to the house of Mariane. The agent was a female who had a very male look and demeanor, (a word that starts with D and rhymes with Eisenhower) especially when she received a call on her cell phone and ordered everyone out of the room. She was absent for the rest of the film.

Randall Bennett (Will Patton) was introduced as the head of Diplomatic Services Security, another police/intelligence agency that few knew of until 911 and few still do. After the first World Trade Center terrorist attack the bomber Ramzi Yousef fled to the Philippines and then to Pakistan. While the FBI chased him around the world, the Diplomatic Security Service came up with the idea to put his photo on a matchbook cover along with a reward and spread them around the major cities in Pakistan. The tactic worked and when Yousef was captured the local FBI representative was called to join the capture – and he arrived late. A Time reporter interviewed a man who was living on the ground floor of the building where Yousef was captured. He was the man whose name was given at this end of this movie and the one responsible for beheading Pearl, Khalid Sheikh Mohammad.

Angelina Jolie does a very nice job and it’s the type of role that could earn her an Oscar nomination. Irfan Kahn, the Captain, also does a remarkable job for someone whose reticence might be mistaken for incompetence. On the contrary, we get the feeling that the Captain is from a different culture and can’t be as outgoing as a western counterpart. When he is with his men and investigating the kidnapping Kahn gives a great performance of a skilled police detective who directs, gives orders and is regarded as a leader.

For such a sad subject, the movie is uplifting in dealing with how two foreign cultures can come to together on a common human condition.



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