On January 23, 2002, Mariane Pearl's world changed forever. Her husband Daniel, South Asia bureau chief for the Wall Street Journal, was researching a story on shoe bomber Richard Reid. The story drew them to Karachi where a go-between had promised access to an elusive source. As Danny left for the meeting, he told Mariane he might be late for dinner. He never returned. In the face of death, Danny's spirit of defiance and his unflinching belief in the power of journalism led Mariane to write about his disappearance, the intense effort to find him and his eventual murder in her memoir "A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband Danny Pearl." Six months pregnant when the ordeal began, she was carrying a son that Danny hoped to name Adam. She wrote the book to introduce Adam to the father he would never meet. Transcending religion, race and nationality, Mariane's courageous desire to rise above the bitterness and hatred that continues to plague this post 9/11 world, serves as the purest expression of the joy of life she and Danny shared.
This was a very well done movie. Its based on the true story of the reporter that was kidnapped and beheaded on video by terrorists. It may be too soon for some people to watch a movie based on these events. If you are able to handle it, its a good dramatization of a truly horrible experience for those that had to go through this. This is probably Angelina Jolie's best performance (even if her accent was driving me nuts). The supporting characters who were helping her look for the husband and the dead on anxiety/sorrow they were feeling is really what made this movie good. The one big knock against it was that there were numerous parts in the movie where the characters were speaking a foreign language and there were no subtitles so we had no clue what they were saying. Unless I unknowingly did something to my DVD player and turned off the subtitle feature - it makes no sense to not tell us what the people are saying.
I would recommend anyone who is in to true story dramatizations check this one out. Its worth the rental fee.
