ALLAN HUNTER at the Movies

PROLIFIC BRITISH director Michael Winterbottom is a past master at relating dramatic true stories in an urgent documentary style.

He brings a shrewd intelligence to bear on ‘A Mighty Heart’, the 2002 case of the kidnap and execution of American journalist Daniel Pearl. We already know how the story ended but it is a mark of Winterbottom’s skill that the film is no less compelling because of that.

A journalist for the Wall Street Journal, Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman) was respected for his integrity and desire to tease out a balanced truth from the muddy complexities of global politics.

In 2002, he was in Pakistan with his wife Mariane (Angelina Jolie) who was expecting their first child. One January day in Karachi he left for a meeting related to a story on the shoe bomber Richard Reid. He never returned.

The bulk of the film is a dramatisation of the efforts that went into discovering his fate and trying to secure his safe release from a Pakistanti group seeking better treatment for hostages held at Guantanamo Bay.

‘A Mighty Heart’ does a fine job of making a relatively complicated story approachable. The politics of Pearl’s kidnapping are paramount but are balanced by the personal story of what is at stake for his wife.

Angelina Jolie gives her best performance in years, sustaining a flawless accent as the French-born Mariane and conveying the dignified spirit of the woman, while Irrfan Khan lends great authority to the role of the resolute investigator Captain who was so determined to find Pearl.

‘A Mighty Heart’ is a well cast film that offers a clear-sighted account of tragic events.

Selected nationwide release

Director: Michael Winterbottom
Stars: Angelina Jolie, Dan Futterman, Irrfan Khan, Denis O’Hare, Archie Punjabi, WIll Patton
Screenwriter: John Orloff based on the book by Mariane Pearl
Certificate: 15
Running time: 108 mins
Country: USA/UK
Year: 2007

© Allan Hunter, 2007