The titular character in The Mauritanian is a man named Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Tahir Rahim), who was arrested in the chaos after 9/11 as a terrorist, and tossed into the United States’ infamous offshore Guantánamo prison. He, like hundreds of other international accused criminals, are left there to rot not just without trial, but without …
During the pandemic, for whatever reason and perhaps against better judgement, I have watched many disaster movies. Perhaps it is to feel better knowing that things could be a lot worse, but the truth is they have made me feel perhaps more queasy than they would have under normal circumstances. This can be said of …
The Report is literally about a 7,000 page report, which you see in physical context at one point: Two seemingly foot-high stacks of paper sit to both sides of investigator Dan Jones (Adam Driver) as he presents his shocking findings on the CIA’s illegal post-9/11 torture methods to the Senate Intelligence Committee. The report itself …
In 2008, the bustling city of Mumbai, India was attached in a coordinated effort by a group of Pakistani terrorists that hit 12 targets throughout the city, ultimately killing at least 174 people. Four of the gunmen went to the luxurious Taj Mahal Palace Hotel, and Hotel Mumbai is a claustrophobic, horrifically detailed reenactment of …
In the late 1990s, the U.S. government was carefully watching the rising threat of Osama Bin Laden and Al-Qaeda. The series of events started stacking up, from the 1998 bombings of U.S. Embassys in Kenya and Tanzania (killing over 200 people between them), to the attack on the USS Cole in the waters of Yemen, …
It’s hard to be critical of a movie celebrating a heroic act when said heroes are also actors in the movie. Clint Eastwood’s film adaptation of The 15:17 to Paris (based on the book by the same name) tells the true story of three best friends who thwarted a terrorist attack on a train from …
At first thought, I was expecting a totally tasteless disaster movie based on Flight 93 that was hijacked on 9/11/2001 and crashed (or shot down?) in a Pennsylvania field. Unless you were living in the bushes or lost on Gilligan’s Island, you already know the story of United 93. The movie was based on all …
Angelina Jolie is (or can be) a very good actress. Angelina Jolie does a lot of great things with her celebrity. Alas, Angelina Jolie is also extremely overexposed in the media, to the point that, whether she likes it or not, it is difficult for the audience to separate the real woman from any characters …