A Mighty Heart (HD-DVD + DVD-Video)
Picture:
B/C+ Sound: B+/B Extras: C Film: B-
When it
comes to Angelina Jolie, nothing makes me happier than when she takes on a
serious film role and delivers. Though
Michael Winterbottom’s A Mighty Heart
(2007) can be a trying film in its semi-documentary style at times, Jolie’s
performance as Mariane Pearl is stunning, thorough and made her dig deep to
pull it off. Fortunately, pull it off
she does.
Though
the tale of her journalist/husband Daniel Pearl killed covering the Middle East
situation is well known, it is still one of the saddest, ugliest, unfortunate
and awful events to occur and shook the world of journalism in a way no event
had for years in the field. He worked
for The Wall Street Journal and was trying to report the stories he could with
an integrity we have seen little of on the subject. His hot lead gets him kidnapped and the rest
is well known.
If not,
it will be a surprise, but the biggest surprise here is that Jolie becomes Mariane in a way that is simply
underappreciated and even overcomes some of the limits of John Orloff’s
intelligent screenplay when it gets occasionally bogged down. I also liked the idea of a film that was
taking place in the near present instead of a fantasy world, the past or some
cop-out flashback. It also becomes one
of the first film’s Hollywood has made that is not a formula look at The Middle
East and that is a quiet triumph in itself.
For Jolie, she easily delivers one of the best performances of the year.
The 1080p
2.35 X 1 digital High Definition image mixes real anamorphic scope Panavision
and Arriflex Hawk scope with HD and low def NTSC video. This does not always work, but Director of
Photography Marcel Zyskind (who delivered such good work for Winterbottom on Code 46) comes up with a unique look
for the film, even when it does not work.
It looks good, if not great in HD-DVD and is softer with lesser Video
Black in the standard DVD-Video version.
Paramount surprisingly uses Dolby TrueHD 5.1 for the best sound
reproduction and the film has an interesting sound design to its credit, while
the Dolby Digital Plus 5.1 mix and standard Dolby Digital 5.1 mix on the DVD
cannot compete for smoothness and warmth.
Extras
are few, but include a making of featurette, public service announcement and
Committee To Protect Journalists segments.
Expect to hear more about this film and Jolie in particular during
awards season.
- Nicholas Sheffo
