Susan Granger’s review of “A Mighty Heart” (Paramount Vantage)
On January 23, 2002, journalist Daniel Pearl, South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan, while investigating a link between the “shoe bomber” Richard Reid and Mubarik Ali Gilani, a Pakistani cleric involved with militant Islamic groups. As his six-month pregnant wife, Mariane, waited anxiously, the US consulate and FBI, working with Pakistani law enforcement, tracked down leads.
Michael Winterbottom’s documentary-style drama captures the desperation and intensity of the tragic five-week manhunt for Daniel Pearl. Dispassionately narrated by Mariane (Angelina Jolie) and based on her memoir, it traces Daniel’s (Dan Futterman) harrowing last night of freedom with flashbacks to happier moments during their marriage, eventually delineating the misery that breeds terrorism and declaring that dialogue should displace anger, prejudice and hate.
Despite the known outcome, screenwriter John Orloff maintains tension and urgency with Winterbottom using a gritty, handheld, cinema-verite style, intercutting Mariane’s vigil in the company of her comforting colleague Asra Normani (Archie Panjabi) with the suspenseful mystery of the Pakistani jihadists evolving within their own socio/political context. In some ways, “A Mighty Heart” is a follow-up to Winterbottom’s “Road to Guantanamo.”
In the most challenging role since “Girl, Interrupted,” Angelina Jolie delivers an utterly believable, incomparably powerful performance, commanding the screen with her own brand of low-key incandescence, evoking a heartbreaking mix of strength and sadness; there is no extraneous element in her work. Dan Futterman (Oscar-nominated for writing “Capote”) is convincing, as are Will Patton and Irrfan Khan.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “A Mighty Heart” is a timely, morally complicated 8. As Mariane Pearl poignantly concludes on CNN, 10 other people were killed by terrorists in Pakistan during the same month – and none of them were foreigners.
