Product Description

Paramount A Mighty Heart (HD-DVD)Academy Award(R) winnerAngelina Jolie ("The Good Shepherd") "gives one the most commanding and moving performances of her career" (Richard Roeper Ebert & Roeper) in this shocking true story based on Mariane Pearl's best-selling memoir. After her husband Wall Street Journal reporter Daniel Pearl (Dan Futterman "Urbania") is kidnapped by terrorists Mariane (Jolie) heads a desperate search for clues in a frantic raceagainst time to locate her missing husband. Directed by maverick filmmaker Michael Winterbottom ("The Road To Guantanamo") "A Mighty Heart" is a gripping story of faith hope and courage in the faceof tragedy.System Requirements:Run Time: 108 minutes Genre: CHILDREN/FAMILY Rating: R UPC: 097363505242

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #7446 in DVD
• Brand: NCircle Entertainment
• Released on: 2007-10-16
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Color, Dolby, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish, French
• Dubbed in: French, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 108 minutes

Amazon.com
A Mighty Heart comes at the murder of journalist Daniel Pearl with a de-glamorized intensity: it's not a melodrama about Pearl's kidnapping and killing at the hands of Islamic terrorists, but a near-documentary about the process of trying to find him. Thus the center of the film is not Pearl (Dan Futterman) but his wife Mariane (Angelina Jolie), a cool customer who manages--almost--to maintain her calm throughout the weeks-long ordeal. Director Michael Winterbottom is less overtly political here than in his Road to Guantanamo, although the reactions of various authorities, from U.S. officials to local Pakistani cops, give the flavor of different attitudes and approaches. Jolie, playing the Dutch-Afro-Cuban Mariane Pearl, does nicely at playing her character's control (others marvel at her sangfroid), yet she remains recognizably human throughout. By no means a star turn, the movie leaves Mariane for long stretches, and other actors shine: Irfan Khan as a detective, Denis O'Hare as Daniel Pearl's Washington Post editor, and Will Patton as a stymied diplomat. As engrossing as the movie generally is, the point of emphasizing the police-procedural method is sometimes obscure. Oddly enough, by rejecting the usual string-pulling of conventional Hollywood drama, A Mighty Heart ends up without a strong point of view--as good as its pieces are. --Robert Horton

Customer Reviews

interesting drama that could use some fleshing out
***1/2

Daniel Pearl was, of course, the foreign correspondent for the "Wall Street Journal" who was kidnapped and brutally executed by a group of Muslim jihadists whom he sought out for an interview in early 2002. His wife, Marianne, also a journalist and pregnant with their child at the time, later went on to publish a chronicle of that event, appropriately entitled "A Mighty Heart."

Adapted by John Orloff and starring Angelina Jolie and Dan Futterman in the principal roles, the movie of the same name chronicles the efforts of Marianne and those around her to uncover her husband's whereabouts and to try to rescue him before the terrorists have the chance to make good on their threat to liquidate him, if their demands - for improved conditions for the prisoners being held at Guantanamo Bay - are not met. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, the movie does a solid job recreating the step-by-step process by which those working on the case were able to identify, and even apprehend, some of the captors. But so intent is the movie on exploring every last detail of the search that the characters themselves tend to fall by the wayside at times. This includes Marianne who, beautifully as Jolie embodies her, often winds up being shunted off to the side when she should be taking center stage and making us care deeply about her and the plight she is facing. The format of the story is such that we are given only brief glimpses of Marianne and Daniel together and, in each case, they are invariably shown as deliriously happy and passionately in love, which no doubt they were, but it doesn't allow for much shading or depth in the relationship.

The movie is, of course, heartbreaking in its final scenes, as the story works its way to its foreordained tragic conclusion and Marianne is left to pick up the pieces of her shattered life. Yet, the extraordinary courage that both Daniel and Marianne display in being willing to put their own lives at risk in confronting the injustices of the world leaves the audience with a feeling of hope for the future.

Thus, despite its weaknesses of characterization and drama, "A Mighty Heart" still manages to move us in the end.

A mighty heart
This movie was kinda long and drawn out(boring). Sorry I purchased it, might resell it. The only part of that movie that keeps poping up in my mind is when Daniel pearl was ask about 911. "Why so many jews didn't show up for work that day when the twin towers were hit". Why would the writer of this movie write a line such as this and put it in a movie? Is the writer truly trying to tell us something about the jews and 911?. Can jewish people be trusted? are they the true evils of this world, and the reason for the wars we face today?

MICHAEL WINTERBOTTOM, OPUS 16
*** 2007. Based on Mariane Pearl's A Mighty Heart: The Brave Life and Death of My Husband, Danny Pearl and directed by Michael Winterbottom. Angelina Jolie earned a Golden Globe nomination for her performance. Daniel Pearl, a journalist working for the Wall Street Journal, is kidnapped in Karachi, Pakistan. The film relates the events taking place until Daniel Pearl's tragic death. Apart of the always necessary task to relate the death of a journalist, I don't see what Michael Winterbottom had to say with this film. In terms of cinema, A MIGHTY HEART will not leave a durable trace in history. Already forgotten.