|
Directed By : Michael Winterbottom Starring : Angelina Jolie / Marriane Pearl Archie Panjabi / Asra Q. Nomani Dan Futterman / Daniel Pearl Running Time 100 Minutes There are two sides to every story. While most people know the story of Daniel pearl as one about a journalist taken hostage by militant Jihadists, the story most people never heard was the trials and tribulations of his wife, and the epic rescue effort undertaken by the Pakistani anti terror unit in attempting to find Pearl. A Mighty Heart is a roller-coaster of story telling and emotion. Parts of the film come off more like a documentary filmed in real time or dramatically re-inacted (choose your flavor). This is a device in the first half which sets the tempo for the entire remainder of the film. If story telling could be equated to puzzle solving then Michael Winterbottom grabbed the jigsaw that was the Daniel Pearl story, shook the box as hard as he could, then threw the pieces on the table. While this method made the first half of the film deliberately slow and documentary-like, the tempo eventually goes into overdrive as the whole puzzle becomes clear. The second half of the film becomes a emotional, unforgetable turn of events. The entire slower first half of the film completely forgiven because once you reach this turning point in the film it becomes clear that everything done, no matter how slow it was becomes painstakingly necessary. It's hard to find anyone who isn't familuar with the Daniel Pearl saga. Most of us lived this nightmare in real time and watch the events unfold as only the major news circuits could tell it. If you feel the need to sit through a tear jerker this month this film is it. Jolie felt off kilter early on playing a french journalist but by the time she is called to actually act you could care less. Jolie takes the part and brings the performance to life in a way I hadn't known she could. The cast is convincing, the dialogue well written, the filming authentic to the region where the event happened. In the end, A Mighty Heart gets a mighty seal of approval from this goon. Rating 5/5.5
|
#
?
Jun 26, 2007 09:24
|
|
|
|
| # ? Apr 19, 2024 20:28 |
|
|
I really didn't enjoy this film at all. It's so hard to watch Angelina Jolie playing an American character because of her facial features and because she's freakin' Angelina Jolie, much less when she is pretending to be French when we all she knows is not. I didn't think her acting was too great in this movie, which means that the entire movie wasn't that great since it really did focus on her. That's the other point, and what a lot of critics are saying about the movie--it's too much about Angelina and the character she plays rather than about Daniel Pearl himself. Also, it seems like the whole movie was filmed at the dining room table, with all of them staring at computers. How boring is that? It didn't have any real content, and does not tell the audience anything we didn't already know. The best part of the movie is the last scene when Nouvelle Vague's "In a Manner of Speaking" starts to play. I love that song. Rating 2/5
|
|
#
?
Jul 2, 2007 21:10
|
|