Introduction - Brutal torture at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, for an innocent African man.
Name of film: The Mauritanian
Director: Kevin Macdonald
Year: 2021
Official Poster
Trailer
Review
Guantanamo Bay is still around, with some 40 prisoners left and locked up there. Over the years since 9/11, there have been only a handful of genuine terrorist prosecutions - most have been overturned - we now know that inhuman torture and threat were used to obtain fake confessions.
400 terrorist suspects, mostly civilian innocents have been taken there since the fall of the twin towers.
Any film that condones the war crimes of the Bush/Rumsfeld administration, is worthy, and to give this film its' due credit, it doesn't pull any punches in its' condemnation of the brutal methods used at Guantanamo to illicit confessions. Bush supporters called for immediate death penalties for prisoners there after 9/11, with no regard to constitution and rule of law.
This is an honourable movie, based on the true story and best selling book by Mohamedou Ould Slahi from Mauritania in north-west Africa. A former Muhajideen anti-communist fighter in Afghanistan in the 1990s, he was picked up and handed over to the US authorities after 9/11, with the Mauritanian government’s permission and kept at Guantánamo Bay without charge or trial for 14 years. He was released when America finally accepted his confessions were forced. During his interrogations the military threatened to kill his mother.
Kevin Macdonald directed the amazing mountain survival thriller, Touching the Void - that film held viewers on the edge of their seats - The Mauritanian unfortunately doesn't do the same. Jodie Foster is Slahi's lawyer, and there are many scenes of her analysing hidden records in office rooms, building her case against Bush and his administration.
The prosecution lawyer, played by a gentlemanly Benedict Cumberbatch, is a devout Christian and soldier. He is told that Slahi recruited the terrorists who crashed the hijacked plane into the South Tower, killing his best friend - a passenger. He is determined to do the right thing - but he slowly discovers for himself, the horrors going on at Guantanamo. There are also many shots of Cumberbatch deep in thought and research, sometimes confronting his bosses, who all want to stay on point with Bush.
There are meetings between Cumberbatch and Foster who find themselves on the same side - this reviewer found himself admiring the solid, honest acting from both of them, rather than the film's script and direction.
Slahi is played believably and with passion by French actor, Tahar Rahim. His tortures, played in flashback mostly through a psychedelic camera lens, are brief, visceral and effective, but there is little character development during this movie - no Jack Nicholson, "you cant handle the truth" type moments, as in A Few Good Men.
By the end of The Mauritanian, we learn that Slahi stayed in Guantánamo for six years after the prosecution collapsed in 2010 – strangely by order of the Obama government. Now released, there is only silence from the US Government about his plight.
Slahi is happily married with a family, though he never saw his mother again - she died before his release. He has no outward resentment towards the US, or Mauritanian authorities - he doesn’t wish to take action against them - he appears as himself, happily listening to Bob Dylan over the closing credits.
The Mauritanian was released in the United States on February 12, 2021 by STXfilms. In the United Kingdom, where all cinemas were closed due to the COVID-19 pandemic, the planned cinema release was cancelled and the film was premiered on Amazon Prime Video on April 1, 2021. It received mixed to positive reviews, with critics praising Macdonald's direction, its cinematography and performances of the cast (particularly of Rahim and Foster) but criticised its screenplay. At the 78th Golden Globe Awards, it received two nominations - Best Actor – Motion Picture Drama (for Rahim), with Foster winning Best Supporting Actress – Motion Picture. At the 74th British Academy Film Awards the film received five nominations, including Best Film, Outstanding British Film, and Best Actor (for Rahim).
Number of SUBs out of 10 - 6
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Thanks for reading my review, always up for comments and a chat about films and TV.