Manish Vij thought “A Mighty Heart” could have been more compelling.
It’s well worth watching, but it’s too narrow in scope to satisfy. The full story is crying out to be unraveled: Pakistan’s Great Game, Al Qaeda’s backstory, the ISI links; less Oprah, more Syriana. Instead the movie covers five uncomprehending weeks at Mariane Pearl’s table while poor Daniel had long since been quartered and buried. Angelina Jolie is prettier than Dan Futterman, but her character was peripheral to the larger tale. Even if doing a human drama, focusing on Daniel would have been more compelling.
Filmiholic feels that those who liked the book, might be disappointed with the movie.
Linked by BA. Join Blogbharti facebook group.It’s not bad enough that the story is subsumed by the oversized persona of La Jolie, we also get shortchanged when it comes to Danny’s story, and we never fall in love with him, the way we do when reading the book, and that’s a pity, because I think it’s an important piece of why Mariane searched so frantically for him, and why it was particularly tragic that such a good person was cut down in his 30s, when he could have done so much more, not least of all as a father to Adam.
I just saw the movie and couldnt help but feel how so many daniel pearls as well as other inocents are being murdered each day — in afghaistan and iraq — and not receiving a fraction of the mention given to the white jourbalist. Somewhere it points to the hypocrisy with which we place differential value on an american (and white) life as compared to another. i know this is defensive but to an ignorant audience already fed with american govt propoganda the islamic world is portrayed as a handful of rational, civilized people amidst a society of unfathomable barbarians. surely, the world is more complicated than this. it also makes one angry at the larger factors that create the conditions for such henious acts.
. Somewhere it points to the hypocrisy with which we place differential value on an american (and white) life as compared to another.
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Cloud9:
If the white journalist had just been killed in an ordinary accident in his own country, there would be no sensational story. I think the value and worth in his story and the extraordinary attention placed on it is because he was outside his own context. If an innocent Afghani journalist came to the US in order to report about the Muslim world there and was brutally executed by the Klan or some white hate-group, then I think we would have the same amount of attention.
In other words, the worth of his life is because of the sacrifice he made to bring the news to the rest of the world…not in his skin colour.
I thought the depiction of Pakistan and Karachi was successful and artful. I loved this movie but was not sure what it was about. For me, some elusive emphasis never captured left me hanging. Too polite?
Read the book or wait for a remake. This movie focuses too much face time on an ‘unglamorized’ Angelina Jolie. A better actress with a well written script was needed to tell Daniel’s story properly.