2007   USA A Mighty Heart
A Mighty Heart Image Cover
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Director:Michael Winterbottom
Studio:Paramount
Writer:John Orloff, Mariane Pearl
IMDb Rating:6.7 (15,740 votes)
Awards:Nominated for Golden Globe. Another 1 win & 14 nominations
Genre:Drama
Duration:108 min
Languages:English
IMDb:0829459
Amazon:B000VBB6F6
Search:NetflixYouTube
Michael Winterbottom  ...  (Director)
John Orloff, Mariane Pearl  ...  (Writer)
 
Dan Futterman  ...  Danny
Angelina Jolie  ...  Mariane
Archie Panjabi  ...  Asra
Mohammed Afzal  ...  Shabbir
Mushtaq Khan  ...  Danny's Taxi Driver (as Mushtaq Ahmed)
Daud Khan  ...  Masud the Fixer
Telal Saeed  ...  Kaleem Yusuf
Arif Khan  ...  Mariane’s Taxi Driver
Tipu Taheer  ...  Human Rights Director
Amit Dhawan  ...  Technical Supervisor
Saira Khan  ...  Nasrin (as Saira Nasir Khan)
Aliya Khan  ...  Kashva
Sarah Mone  ...  Female Guest
Bushra Parwani  ...  Female Guest
Zafar Karachiwala  ...  Male Guest
Irfan Khan  ...  
Marcel Zyskind  ...  Cinematographer
Peter Christelis  ...  Editor
Saira Nasir Khan  ...  Nasrin
Comments: It was an event that shocked the world. This is the story you haven't heard.

Summary: A Mighty Heart comes at the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl with a de-glamorized intensity: it's not a melodrama about Pearl's kidnapping and killing at the hands of Islamic terrorists, but a near-documentary about the process of trying to find him.

Thus the center of the film is not Pearl (Dan Futterman) but his wife Mariane (Angelina Jolie), a cool customer who manages--almost--to maintain her calm throughout the weeks-long ordeal. Director Michael Winterbottom is less overtly political here than in his Road to Guantanamo, although the reactions of various authorities, from U.S. officials to local Pakistani cops, give the flavor of different attitudes and approaches.

Jolie, playing the Dutch-Afro-Cuban Mariane Pearl, does nicely at playing her character's control (others marvel at her sangfroid), yet she remains recognizably human throughout. By no means a star turn, the movie leaves Mariane for long stretches, and other actors shine: Irfan Khan as a detective,

Denis O'Hare as Daniel Pearl's Washington Post editor, and Will Patton as a stymied diplomat. As engrossing as the movie generally is, the point of emphasizing the police-procedural method is sometimes obscure. Oddly enough, by rejecting the usual string-pulling of conventional Hollywood drama, A Mighty Heart ends up without a strong point of view--as good as its pieces are. --Robert Horton


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