A Mighty Heart

One can't read or think about this film without wondering why the death of Daniel Pearl is film-worthy. Of all the deaths that have come to people in the ongoing war between the West and radical Islam, why does the kidnapping and murder of an American journalist in Pakistan in 2002 merit a film? It's an unfair question, and not really answerable. Even the character of Marianne Pearl, Daniel's wife, can't answer it, for at the end of the film she points out how many innocent Pakistanis had died in the period between 9/11 and when Daniel died.

So we turn that question aside and judge the film on its own merits, and when I do that, I have to say it's a fine, gritty film. It's really a police procedural above all else, not an examination of the conflict. Pearl, who wrote for the Wall Street Journal, is on his way to an interview with a Sheikh. He doesn't come home, and Marianne gets on the phone and soon an investigation is under way. She gets help from her colleagues, the U.S. consulate, and the Pakistani police, in the person of a Captain, masterfully played by Irrfan Kahn (who was so good in The Namesake). They interrogate witnesses, track down leads, and go up blind alleys. All of this is nimbly directed by Michael Winterbottom and edited with a pace that doesn't allow you to take a breath.

There is also a lot of talk about the star of this picture, Angelina Jolie. As Marianne, who is of Caribbean descent, Jolie wears a wig of curls and had her skin darkened. It's not exactly like Charlize Theron playing Aileen Wuornos, but I guess this is how Jolie "deglams." In any case, she is quite good, playing a woman who is a Buddhist, and therefore keeps a calm exterior through the madness of the weeks that follow her husband's kidnapping. After an interview on CNN, a producer comments that one would never know what she was going through by her demeanor. But after Daniel is confirmed dead, she lets it all out in a long take that is brutal to sit through. There's also a great moment for Jolie when she is asked whether she watched the video of her husband's beheading, a pretty insulting question.

A Mighty Heart, which is not a very good title, is a good crime film with a downbeat ending, but it is not a film that has much to say about U.S.-Arab relations. I think that's probably a good thing.