The story of the kidnapping and eventual murder of Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was so powerful that it captivated an international audience for weeks of media coverage.
The question is, can the movie based on the horrifying story, "A Mighty Heart" garner the same kind of attention?
If you are looking for a depiction of these chilling events from the perspective of Daniel Pearl, played by Dan Futterman, or a director's best guess as to what happened to him from the moment he was kidnapped up until his death, you are looking in the wrong place.
"A Mighty Heart" is told through the eyes of Daniel's pregnant wife, Mariane Pearl, played by Angelina Jolie and the cast of characters made up of police, journalists and family friends who helped her search for him.
"A Mighty Heart" places the viewer right in the center of the investigation and follows the search team as
they track down leads, and find clues that slowly unravel the mystery behind Pearl's abduction.
In fact, Daniel's appearances in the movie are few, and his character is disappointingly underdeveloped for a story adapted from a book meant to honor his life.
Despite the inadequate use of the story's most compelling character, director Michael Winterbottom ("Welcome to Sarajevo") starts the movie strongly by vividly portraying the story's absolutely chaotic setting in the streets of Karachi, Pakistan.
These opening shots help explain how easy it would be to make someone disappear in an environment that makes New York City look tame. These stunning shots of Pakistan remind us of the extreme cultural differences between the Middle Eastern world and our own that in part created the kind of hatred that led to Pearl's death.
Although the moviegoer already knows the tragic ending to this story before it happens onscreen, Winterbottom still manages to make the search efforts of Mariane and her colleagues thoroughly interesting.
Some of the best moments in the movie are when Mariane and her team of investigators, including family friend
Asra Nomadi, played by Archie Panjabi, entertain the audience by using blunt tactics to retrieve information from a seemingly endless group of shady Pakistanis.
Unfortunately, after tackling the investigation head on immediately after her husband's disappearance, Mariane becomes considerably less active during the remainder of the search beginning near the middle of the movie.
Although other characters like the Captain, played by Irrfan Khan, who leads the investigation as head of the Pakistani counterterrorism unit, pick up the slack left over quite well, the movie still lacks some of the early punch that Mariane's strength and quick wit provided.
Mariane's presence is missed further after she goes from being a reactive character, to completely invisible in the story as the plot line turns to follow Captain and his unit using unconventional methods, like torture, to get the answers they need.
Jolie does make the most out of the times she is on screen, however, and her star power does not get in the way of her amazing performance.
Jolie's portrayal of the moment when Mariane learned of her husband's death is so powerful that it is sure to send chills up the body of anyone with a pulse who watches it, and alone was worth the price of admission.
However, the scene is almost too real and becomes very difficult to watch. Thankfully, Winterbottom spares the viewer of another disturbing image by leaving out the video of Pearl's death.
The straightforward storyline appropriately concludes without any profound political messages being sent, and without a nice little bow wrapping up the moral of the story for us.
But this movie won't appease all audiences, mainly because it is rather depressing and does not exactly leave you with a "happily ever after" ending. Many moviegoers may feel the storyline is jumbled and confusing which I am sure is the same way the real investigators felt during the painstaking five-week search for Pearl.
Also, fans of continuous action may want to steer clear of "A Mighty Heart" because the story does drag along slowly at points.
