Hey everyone. Capone in Chicago here. I

t's only June, and we've already got the year's first true Oscar contender, which I guess is my roundabout way of declaring A MIGHTY HEART one of the best films I've seen all year. I'll begin this discussion with a confession: shortly after the shocking video of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl's death was put out on the Internet in early 2002, I sought it out and watched it. In this day and age, I guess that confession isn't particularly scandalous, and I'm sure many of you did the same. Execution videos are all over the Internet, and (be honest) most of you probably took a peek at Saddam Hussein's hanging video, both versions. But the Daniel Pearl footage, at the time, was an event most American's had never seen anything like. And if you did view it and you're like me, you'll probably never want to see anything like it again. For months, maybe even years, after seeing it, my mind replayed the thing behind my eyes. As a result of this, I wanted to know as much about how Pearl found himself in that situation.

A MIGHTY HEART is a startlingly powerful telling of the events leading up to, during, and shortly after his kidnapping and awful murder, as seen through the eyes of his six-months-pregnant wife Mariane (played by Angelina Jolie, in a career-defining portrayal) and the swarm of investigators, government officials, friends and coworkers who gathered in her rented home in Pakistan in the hopes of finding Daniel (Dan Futterman) before his fate was sealed. Much as director Paul Greengrass did with his UNITED 92, Michael Winterbottom (THE CLAIM, ROAD TO GUANTANAMO) does a remarkable job shaping his story and building an insurmountable level of tension with a story we know does not end well. Wisely, Winterbottom doesn't show Daniel in any situation that can't be absolutely confirmed by witness accounts. In other words, there is no speculation in the screenplay about what happened to him during his time with his kidnappers (other than the handful of photos and videos that were released during his captivity). Guessing isn't part of the film's story, and us not knowing exactly what's happening to Danny all the more awful.

But A MIGHTY HEART is more about the controlled chaos that surrounded Mariane, whose strength, control, and clear thinking is almost inhuman. But my guess is that Mariane Pearl, who was also a journalist, knew how to handle herself in a crisis. I've seen hours of footage of Mariane, so I know exactly what she looks and sounds like, and the way Jolie inhabits this passionate, lovely woman is extraordinary. It's more than just her hair, accent, and slightly darker skin tone, Jolie becomes Mariane as a pillar of strength and stability that crumbles only slightly in front of others, and only slightly more when she's alone.

As a straight procedural thriller, A MIGHTY HEART works equally well, with U.S. and Pakistani officials desperately using every possible source to locate Daniel. There's a recurring image in this film of a massive and messy flow chart that tracks Pearl's whereabouts and connections leading up to his disappearance. He was investigating shoe-bomber Richard Reid's connections to terrorist groups in the area when he was snatched, and during the course of the film, the chart that connects the two men grows and expands to ridiculous extremes. Not only is the handling of the investigation quite authentic, but the frustration with bad information and dead-end leads is also perfectly captured.

A MIGHTY HEART may not made you cry (in many ways, Mariane's reserve rubs off on the audience), but it will move you and inject itself into your heart and mind in ways that, for me, have replaced those awful images of Daniel Pearl's execution. Seeing the couple at their wedding and just being so clearly in love is something else the film graces us with, not so much to soften the blow but to remind us that this is a film about a wife losing her husband and a baby boy who never got to know his father. Winterbottom does what he has always done so beautifully in films like GUANTANAMO and IN THIS WORLD, which is to take a situation that has impacted so many (more than 200 journalists have been killed since Pearl) and boil it down to one devastating story. I'll say it again: this is one of the year's best films.

Capone