The Mauritanian reviews

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FilmFan720
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Re: The Mauritanian reviews

Post by FilmFan720 »

I saw this last night. I don't think it is going to be a big factor. On a quality scale, I would say that it is on the same level as MacDonald's Last King of Scotland, which was really only acknowledged for Whitaker's performance. This also has a terrific central performance in Tahar Rahim, but it is a much quieter and less showy performance. His sequences tend to be the best in the film, and he handles a lot of different shades of the character well, but I don't see a campaign really going anywhere (especially in a Best Actor crowd that is so full already).

When the film is away from Gitmo and Rahim, it becomes a cliched military law thriller really quickly. It is heavy handed, the Cumberbatch character is embarrassingly played, and not even that interesting. Perhaps this is because I have already seen so many documentaries that handled these issues so much better.

Jodie Foster doesn't really have an Oscar scene, but in a weak category, she might get some traction.
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Sabin
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The Mauritanian reviews

Post by Sabin »

So... this one looks done.


‘The Mauritanian’ Review: A Strong Tahar Rahim Performance Stuck Inside a Mediocre Gitmo Drama
David Ehrlich
GRADE: C-

https://www.indiewire.com/2021/01/the-m ... 234609425/

"A flat and scattered judicial docudrama that unpacks the case of Mohamedou Ould Salahi with the crude imprecision of a courtroom sketch artist, Kevin Macdonald’s “The Mauritanian” is buoyed only by Tahar Rahim’s humane performance as a Guantanamo Bay prisoner who spent 14 years in the extrajudicial facility without ever being charged with a crime, and its unwavering conviction that America’s highest ideals can lead a path straight to Hell if they’re not considered absolute. “The Constitution doesn’t have an asterisk that says terms and conditions apply,” no-nonsense Albuquerque lawyer Nancy Hollander sniffs at one point, Jodie Foster delivering the line as if her character knows that it’s the thesis of the film she’s in."


Fence-sitting Guantánamo drama provides few answers
Peter Bradshaw
**/****
https://www.theguardian.com/film/2021/j ... ahar-rahim

"But with this movie, we are plunged right back into the exasperating 9/11 fence-sitting handwringer genre that was fashionable in the 00s: conscience-stricken films that invited us to sympathise with their liberal agony, such as Robert Redford’s Lions for Lambs (2007), Gavin Hood’s Rendition (2007) and Stephen Gaghan’s Syriana (2005)." Exactly what it looked like to me


A politically charged legal thriller with only an intermittent pulse.
David Rooney
https://www.hollywoodreporter.com/news/ ... ilm-review

"Unlike Camp X-Ray, a 2014 fictional drama that depicted the hesitant friendship between Kristen Stewart's young Guantánamo Bay guard and a longtime detainee played by Peyman Moaadi from Iranian Oscar winner A Separation, there is no central relationship to give The Mauritanian a compelling human focus. It's remarkable given the movie's often almost clinical detachment that Rahim (so memorable in Jacques Audiard's A Prophet and Asghar Farhadi's The Past) creates such a fully dimensional character. There's a kind of sorrowful poetry to this man, notably as he reaches for a connection with a fellow prisoner, a French national unseen behind barriers in the exercise yard in a handful of scenes."
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