Hey, everyone. ”Moriarty” here.

I hope I’m going to see this one soon. I’ve been probably the biggest supporter of Michael Winterbottom here at the site, and this is his highest-profile film to date. I’m not sure about the subject matter, but it sounds like he’s made an interesting film, and I’m willing to always give him the benefit of the doubt:

Hi guys,

I just saw a preview screening of "A Mighty Heart," the movie about Daniel Pearl. I probably shouldn't say where or when.

I can say that the only thing I didn't like about the film was the title, which I think is more fitting for far duller formulaic fare. Indeed, the film could have easily been rather weak and obvious in a TV-movie-of-the-week way. What saves it from going down this road is Michael Winterbottom, the director. He shoots it in a documentary style with a handheld camera, a technique that has worked well for him recently. He also refuses to overly sentimentalize the subject (though he does get close, especially with the closing scenes).

The movie begins as Pearl seeks out an interview with an elusive subject. After making some connections, he ends up in a taxi in Pakistan. After that, we only see him in flashback and the movie focuses on his wife, Mariane, played by Angelina Jolie. I've come to dislike a lot of Jolie's choices in roles, and she could have easily kept me away from this film as well, but I'm happy to say she actually stretches herself as an actress and does a fine job.

Most of the film tells parallel stories. Supported by a number of friends and colleagues, Mariane frets about her husband's safety as a number of threatening images from the kidnappers come in. Meanwhile, Pakistani intelligence services, assisted by U.S. embassy officials and the FBI, attempt to track down Pearl and his kidnappers. Many of these scenes play out as a police procedural, though the setting is the convoluted and unfamiliar underworld of Muslim extremists in Pakistan. The standout actor in this part of the story is Irfan Khan, an Indian actor who plays the Pakistani captain in charge of the case. You might remember Khan from the recent film "The Namesake," but I would also highly recommend checking him out in "The Warrior," a British film shot in India and featuring Khan as the hatchet man of a brutish warlord who experiences a crisis of conscience. Khan is equally magnetic in "A Mighty Heart." The heavy bags under his large eyes alone speak volumes about the character. The cross-cutting between the two stories works extremely well. You're neither too bogged down in police-speak and false leads nor too tired out by Mariane Pearl's grieving.

The setting is utterly convincing. You really feel that you are immersed in this uncertain culture where the west is both an ally to be courted and appeased and a threat to the more extremist elements. Yet it's not a simple case of the good guy Americans vs. evil Muslim terrorists. This is another key reason why I think Winterbottom is the ideal director for this material. He's made two other fine films about the contemporary Middle East, "In this World" and "Road to Guantanamo," and in both he showed an extraordinary sensitivity to the culture and people in this part of the world. In fact, "A Mighty Heart" serves as sort of a companion piece or flip-side to "Road to Guantanamo." In that film, also based on a true story, a group of innocent British Muslims are caught up in the general round-up of "enemy combatants" in Afghanistan and held captive at Guantanamo. In "A Mighty Heart," the victim is an innocent American held by Muslim extremists. The camp at Guantanamo is even referenced in this film.

I need to touch on one final issue, which is how can the film have any suspense when everyone who's even glanced at the news in the past few years already knows how it will end up and that it will end up really badly? It's really a question of how well the filmmaker practices his art. One of the most gripping scenes I recall from recent films occurs near the end of "United 93" when the passengers are battling to regain control of the hijacked plane. Of course I knew how it would end, yet I was also living the moment with the characters. The same thing happened to me with "A Mighty Heart." I was so caught up with the desperate search for the kidnappers that only when the dreaded video camera is delivered did the horrific ending of the real event come back to me.

In short, I would definitely recommend this film as a tonic to anyone interested in seeing something weightier than all the summer blockbusters out there.

Thanks for reading, and if you use this please cite my name as "The Stranger."