25 June 2007

A Mighty Heart: Does this movie condone torture?

Over the weekend, I saw the new film A Mighty Heart. Overall, the movie does a fine job of portraying the days surrounding the murder of Daniel Pearl from the perspective of his then-pregnant wife, Mariane. Angelina Jolie gave a brilliant performance as Mariane Pearl. The supporting cast was strong as well.

I was very disappointed, however, in one particular scene: In the earlier parts of the Pakistani and American authorities' search for Daniel's captors, they followed trails of phone records to track down suspects. But, later on, after capturing one key suspect, they switched gears and resorted to what these days would be called "enhanced interrogation techniques". And that tactic worked. They got the names of the other bad guys.

So will the mainstream audience leave that film thinking that torture was necessary to achieve justice in this case?

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