A Mighty Heart

This film is an honorable enterprise, but the plus in my rating is more for aspiration than execution. Angelina Jolie admirably avoids the trap of a vanity project in this telling of Mariane Pearl’s story, from the time her husband Danny (reporter for WSJ, and formerly the Berkshire Eagle) was kidnapped in Pakistan till Islamic extremists sent a video of his beheading. And eclectic director Michael Winterbottom brings his on-the-fly, you-are-there style of filmmaking to an arena of urgent interest. Even though the broad facts are generally known, the film’s telling is hectic and confusing, which is no doubt true to the reality of the situation. One big problem is the cipher of Danny, as he appears in flashback. And many of the other characters, far from being idealized, are presented with an ambiguity of motive that might have been revelatory if lingered over, but just adds to the confusion as the incidents hurtle past. The representatives of the Journal, the U.S. Embassy, and the Pakistani secret service all seem as villainous as heroic, and yet we are supposed to admire them in the end? Angelina is the estimable center of the story but does not hog the camera, and in the end not quite enough is made of Mariane’s heroism in not succumbing to hate. The film would probably hold together better on a second viewing, but frankly I’m not eager to see it again. (2007, dvd, n.) *6+* (MC-74.)