Oh Brangelina...

A Mighty Heart(dir. Michael Winterbottom)
Taking an opposite approach to the material than the one he took on for 24 Hour Party People, he employs a deliberately bland style in an attempt to hide the fact that the thing is a film. Too bad this attempt at appearing more "honest" and "real" is undermined by Angelina Jolie's performance. All her character is is simply an accent and a pregnant belly. You never for once believe that this is an actual person. Jolie performs in a way as if she is asking the audience to love her character when there's nothing to love. The narrative is only somewhat effective with the flashbacks with her husband since he's easily the most sympathetic character in the story and the film would have benefited if it at least gave a snippet of what his experience was like during his brief time being detained. The film's narrative is incredibly uninteresting. I'm not saying this type of story needs to be exciting or anything, but it lacks insight and doesn't bother to examine anything around this situation in any type of profound way, making the film seem utterly pointless. The only logical reason in my mind for this movie to exist is to simply get Jolie an Oscar, which it might very well do. It was mediocre.
** out of ****