"Mighty Heart"

My next review is about a very sobering movie offered up by Director Michael Winterbottom called “Mighty Heart.”

Fair warning, this is not a feel good Friday night movie. This is a very scary look at a horrifying real life event that hit the news, and shocked the world.

This movie is the story behind the scenes of the life and death of the Wall Street Journal reporter, Daniel Pearl.

In this film Angelina Jolie plays the wife of Daniel Pearl, Mariane. While serious roles by Angelina are quite few and far between, she proves without a doubt in this picture that she is a top notch actress. The story told here revolves more around Mariane, and her tragic story of suffering the kidnapping of her beloved husband, the political “red tape” involved with trying to find him, and the shocking story of her husband’s brutal death at the hands of terrorists.

While some may find this movie a bit dry, the obvious reason for this is because of the serious nature of what happened and what Mariane had to deal with as her story unfolded in front of the world, and the desperation she felt every waking moment wondering if and when her husband Daniel would ever be found. The ups, and downs she experienced as leads, came in, and went out the door, took her on a ridiculous roller coaster ride from hell, only to finally have the coaster thrown from the tracks when the final proof was revealed to hear that indeed her husband was gone, and not just dead, but horribly executed in the most brutal fashion imaginable.

There is a very large team of actors that help this story be told in a chilling, and real life way and they all did a wonderful job, but when it is all said and done, Angelina is the person that makes this movie the serious stab to your heart that we all need to feel deeply as dozens of similar kidnappings, and executions have happened after Daniels death was played out on the 6 O clock news on a nightly basis.

As I watched this movie play out in front of me already knowing how horrible the ending is, I was still moved by Mariane’s determination to do anything she could, follow any lead, keep the faith until the very last second, and then the complete mental breakdown as she had to finally face the very demon she had been fighting against with all her might. Throughout this sad sequence of events, the title of this movie finally started to hit home.

We all need to take a moment and think back over the past few years at all the very similar events that have happened, and remember the families, and loved ones that have been lost.

My rating for this movie is 8.00 out of 10.00