REVIEW: Tahar Rahim’s Performance is the Winning Piece in The Mauritanian
Could you imagine being tried in court for a crime you didn’t commit? Imprisoned in a place where you are tortured until you confess to a crime you didn’t commit? That is exactly what happened to Mohamedou Ould Slah and is the story being told in Director Kevin Macdonald’s new film, The Mauritanian.
Based on the New York Times best-selling memoir “Guantánamo Diary” by Mohamedou Ould Slah, the story follows defense attorney, Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster) and her assistant, Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley), as they attempt to prove Slah’s (Tahar Rahim) innocence after he is arrested for having supposed connections to the attacks on 9/11. While they attempt to set him free, military prosecutor, Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch) has been given the duty of convicting Slah, but as he digs deeper into the case, he begins to unravel what is really going on in the prison where Slah is being held in Guantanamo Bay.
February seems to be the month of hard hitting films and The Mauritanian keeps the hits coming. Macdonald’s film brings the audience inside the walls of Guantanamo Bay and what is supposedly taking place. It will have you asking a variety of different questions and will leave you wondering what you should believe. The only negative about this film is some of the torture scenes are drawn out a little too long. I’m not sure if this is done on purpose, but the goal of the scenes were easily achieved within the first couple of minutes, so prolonging it felt a little unnecessary.
Rahim’s performance is not only powerful, but extremely moving. To think that Slah went through something like what was depicted on screen and then to see it come to life with Rahim’s performance was, at times, a little hard to sit through. Mostly because of how Rahim portrayed those scenes, but also because it is hard to fathom that things like tis may have actually happened.
Foster, Woodley and Cumberbatch are also nice additions to this story. Foster and Woodley play good cop, bad cop in a number of their scenes together, so when you combine Foster’s feistiness and Woodley’s calming nature, you have a number of winning scenes. Cumberbatch, on the other hand, has a particularly great scene with Zachary Levi’s Neil Buckland about three fourth of the way through the film that will leave you feeling a different way about his character.
The Mauritanian is a fast paced, gripping story that will leave your eyes glued to the screen from start to finish. I definitely recommend checking this film out, whether it be in theaters or On Demand.
Grade: A-