it’s a short movie directed by michael winterbottom made on the recent kidnapping of american (jewish) journalist daniel pearl played by dan futterman. it’s a real story based on the account of daniel’s expecting journalist wife, mariane pearl played by angelina jolie. 

the look n feel of the movie is like a documentary.absence of background music makes you feel the real happenings as if around you.the movie is more factful, detailed and real and the emotions or scare are underplayed to make it purposefully less glamourous. angelina, has played her part to perfection, to the details of accent, hindi words etc. 

daniel pearl along with a bunch of other journalists, was in pakistan to cover the happenings of the taliban war and the hunting operations in tora bora mountains. however even after the main events kind of died down, he stayed on for a few more key interviews, as many important taliban leaders were in pakistan. local agents would arrange meetings / transportation for these journalist ‘friends’. just a last interview left and he would be out of pakistan, but fate took a different turn. a group (out of the many functional groups) plotted to kidnap him, and some agent misleaded him to them…they sent a few tapes to his wife, and the last tape sent pictured someone beheading him,as they forced him say, he was a jew. the cops(irfan khan played the head cop) did try a lot to save him, but failed to be stronger than the vast parallel rule of these jehadi groups in the country which makes it  very messy. 

what is obvious is the prevailing poverty, dark alleys n crowded streets, racism, unlawful and extremist society and the fact that pakistan as a country has become so unsafe and disorganized that its diffucult to enforce any government or military discipline in common man. every third person in public is a jehadi, who knows why he is one and what he is doing. kidnapping, killing, firing, and other anti social activities are prevalent on streets and theres hatred for a lot of reasons that are a complicated mesh. on the surface, there are a few pockets in main cities that have good localities, where foreigners can stay, but the surface is thin and shaky and below it lie the foundations of chaos hatred and violence. 

all in all, a true movie, a good watch, an insight, maybe an eye opener.