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A film subject dealing with true events that happened in this existing environment of this world can be too sensitive. And Mr. Winterbourne has indeed taken a brave decision by deciding to make this film and that should be commended. But braveness alone does not matter; the feasibility of making this film should be known. Whether, a story is feasible to be shown as a feature film or as a documentary, is also to be seen. And this story, with all its restrictions just wasn't worth. It was self righteous and self indulgent in the part of Angelina Jolie.
The story sure would have been a great current event thriller about the kidnapping and murdering of Jewish born wall street journal reporter Daniel Pearl in Pakistan. But the intention of the movie was much more noble. It was a tribute to the fighting spirit of the then pregnant Mariane Pearl. So the focus of the film was on her life at the time of her husband's kidnapping in Pakistan's port city of Karachi, than to the investigation and searching of the kidnapped Daniel pearl. Hence after the kidnapping of Daniel in the beginning of the movie, the story is mainly told in Mariane's affluent bungalow in Karachi. Hence there isn't much scope for a tight grip to the proceedings. The first half drags with only the daily briefings of the investigator to Mariane at her house along with her own flashback memories of her husband. The second half of the movie does have few thrills in its first few reels, as Indian actor Irfan Khan playing the captain of the Pakistani anti-terrorist squad takes over with his squad's chaotic investigation and encounters through the bylines of Karachi. But those moments are few and quiet late due to the time constraints posed by the actual events. Hence the movie mostly depended on the effect the investigation had on Mariane's life and how she handled it, which after a while became a drag and routine for Mariane's character, which after every shocking news would go in the backyard to spell few times the F-word. In any event the movie ends up being mishmash with the director's fruitless efforts of having few thrills in this stiff drama which was a documentation of the actual events following the kidnapping. An investigative thriller focusing on the involvement of the Pakistani intelligence agency ISI in the kidnapping would have been worth.
But what hurts and affects the movie most is the casting of Angelina Jolie as Daniel Pearl's wife Mariane. She proves to be too larger than life for this role which had very few emotions to depict. An unknown face could have saved the movie (but not its business prospects which anyway doomed) and would have brought credibility to the character. Jolie while trying to get under her character's skin ended up stifling her acting prowess which was dying to come out. Jolie was stiff and her face was not expressing much which was important due to lack of dialog's in her role. Jolie's own intention of producing the film and casting herself in the lead must be scrutinized the most, as it seems the script was written with the intentions of pushing her own humanitarian image ( as the drag ending proves it) in the public and film fraternity domain which just proved fatal and wasn't of any good for the movie. As for rest of the cast, they have nothing challenging to perform in the film, except for Irfan Khan who though fails to rescue the film with his half baked character, but is the only one coming out of this film unhurt with his commendable performance.
The whole film overall was made with good intention (except for Miss Jolie's), but without much direction to it and the film ends up with its future doomed like Daniel's life in the entire movie.
score 4/10
dsa_ca 15 November 2007
Reprint: https://www.imdb.com/review/rw1764058/ |
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2-12-2019 08:21:24
