Considering the title and subject matter, A Mighty Heart is a surprisingly uninvolving and at times, frankly boring movie. It takes what should be bold story of human tragedy and turns it into a police procedural, which is not the way to remember an innocent person who was murdered for two sins being American, and being Jewish.
I was vaguely familiar with the story of Daniel Pearl at the beginning of 2002, when the first reports of his kidnap in Pakistan came in, to the tragic news of his death at the hands of Al Qaeda. The Wall Street Journal reporter had been beheaded, and video of his death had been posted on the internet, apparently so that other terrorists could be inspired. His wife, Mariane Pearl, was pregnant at their time with their first child. I remembered being bothered more than usual by this story. Desensitized to mere death, I was saddened by the fact that Pearl was killed in such a barbaric way, that such a private event as his death was posted on the internet, and the fact that his wife was pregnant.
Given this material, you would think that it would be very difficult to make a bad film about this subject, but Winterbottom, a talented director who made the occasionally brilliant A **** and Bull Story, somehow misses the boat. The problem is not with the casting. I have often felt Angelina Jolie's reputation as an actress has suffered because of her high public profile, and the fact that she's really hot. Yes, beautiful women can be great actresses too, and she nails Mariane Pearl, right down the mixed Cuban-French accent. When you compare TV clips of the real Mariane with Jolie, it's impressive. Dan Futterman has a smaller but important role as Daniel, and resists the temptation to turn him into a saint.
The problem with the movie is that endless minuets of screen time are devoted to the search for Daniel led by a Pakistani detective (Irfan Kahn). We get scene after scene of the detective interrogating, investigating, e-mailing, meeting with diplomats, making phone calls, and eventually we stop caring, or even understanding. I was completely confused by much what happens in the second half the picture. The problem is that for a police procedural to work, we need to identify with the policeman and not the victim. It seems almost cruel to set up a real human tragedy and that watch some guy search for facts, when the director should be trying to find some sort of emotional or philosophical meaning from what happened.
A Mighty Heart ends with the series of titles we usually get from "based on a true story" movies. You know, "John married Katherine and moved to Canada." But after the fate of Mariane Pearl and her husband's parents were revealed, I had no idea who any of the many names were. A Mighty Heart takes a great tragedy and neutralizes its impact with irrelevant facts. It's about the how, when it should be about the why.
A Mighty Heart (2007)