There are a few tactics a filmmaker can use when making a movie whose ending the audience already knows. He can add a fictional
element to create suspense, as in "Titanic." He can emphasize the tension among the central characters, as in "Apollo 13." Or he can do neither. Michael Winterbottom takes the last path with "A Mighty Heart," the story of Daniel Pearl, the American journalist who was beheaded by terrorists in 2002. The director makes no attempt to manufacture false suspense over Daniel's fate: Daniel is kidnapped, and we know we'll never see him alive again. But the characters in the movie don't know that, and that's why the film works. Winterbottom records it in docudrama fashion, completely unromanticized or Hollywoodized, and while the film conveys a certain grim resignation to the inevitable conclusion, the characters do not. They remain hopeful. And seeing someone remain vigilant when we know they have no reason to be is both heartbreaking and strangely inspiring. Angelina Jolie -- who is an actress, too, remember? -- gives what is probably the best performance of her career as Mariane Pearl, Daniel's French-Cuban wife and fellow journalist. The two are in Karachi, Pakistan, in the months following 9/11, reporting for the Wall Street Journal on the volatile events that have so recently changed the world. Daniel (Dan Futterman) is scheduled to interview a jihadist named Sheikh Gilani, and the advice he keeps getting from everyone is: meet in public. When he doesn't return from the interview, Mariane gets worried.
To read the rest of this review, click on the relevant link below.