Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl was kidnapped in early 2002 in Karachi, Pakistan. He had traveled there with his wife for a meeting he had set up with a supposed terrorist leader. Michael Winterbottom’s film is based on Mariane Pearl’s memoir, which concentrates on the efforts to learn what happened to him. There are only brief segments before and after this period, so we don’t get to know much about him except that he was a loving husband and was well-respected as a journalist. Most of the scenes are set in the villa where the Mariane Pearl (Angelina Jolie) stayed with Pakistani colleague Asra Nomani. Depicted is a frenzy of activity as Nomani, Journal colleagues, US security agents, and the Karachi police investigator coalesce to comfort Mariane, assist her efforts to track down the perpetrators, and deal with the worldwide media frenzy.
Altogether, the movie is earnest but uninvolving. Jolie gives a surprisingly solid, understated performance with what sounded to me like a decent French accent. Certainly you get a feel for the confusion that must have prevailed as the improvised team tries to piece together how the phony meeting was set up, interviews potential witnesses, and deals with false leads. But for the most part both the journalist/police team and the potential terrorists barely register as characters. (Archie Panjabi as Nomani makes somewhat of an impression.) People who want to understand more about the events behind the kidnapping should probably look elsewhere, as the real-time perspective means that much remains unclear as the film ends, even whether Daniel Pearl’s Jewish background was a factor in his fate.
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