Powerful Drama, True Story
Angelina plays Mariane Pearl, the wife of Daniel Pearl. The real Mariane Pearl’s memoirs are the foundation of the film’s story and events. A Mighty Heart focuses on the nine days of hell that the Pearls went through, starting with the day Daniel was captured until he was killed. During those nine days, Mariane and government organizations diligently investigated the kidnapping, the terrorist’s demands, and did whatever they could to try to locate and rescue the captured journalist. The movie brings viewers right into the heart of the drama, action, frustration, and ultimate sorrow of the tragedy.
A Mighty Heart is one of those film’s that is well acted, tightly written (to where you really need to pay attention to get the most out of it), and leaves an impression, but it may not carry much replay value. It’s a great choice for a one time view, but I don’t know that many people will want to see the film a second time simply due to its strong dramatic, suspenseful nature.
A Mighty Blu-ray?
The Blu-ray release of A Mighty Heart is very much like the HD-DVD release that came out in late 2007. It doesn’t appear, at least to me, that Paramount has added or really changed anything, and I think the release suffers a bit from that. For the most part, the video quality is great, but there is some grain and the colors don’t exactly pop off screen as you might hope for. Aurally, A Mighty Heart is a fairly quiet, dialogue driven movie, and the TrueHD 5.1 audio does a great job handling this.
For extras, there aren’t that many, but to me this isn’t really the kind of film that needs a lot. Still, what is included isn’t much, and really only one extra pertains directly to the film itself. That said, the included extras are:
-A Journey of Passion: The Making of A Mighty Heart – This is a thirty minute, SD look at the making of the film, including plenty of cast and crew anecdotes and interviews.
-Public Service Announcement – A two minute PSA given by a CNN journalist, promoting the Daniel Pearl Foundation.
-Committee To Protect Journalists – A nearly ten minute SD feature that focuses on a foundation that was setup to help protect journalists around the world. The feature includes information on other journalists who have been killed in their line of work.
-Theatrical Trailer In HD
Let’s get to the summary…