There can never be too many films about the human rights violations committed by the Bush Administration in the name of avenging 9/11. After last year’s The Report with Adam Driver, we get a fresh take on Gitmo and the horrors committed to other human beings with The Mauritanian, starring Jodie Foster, Shailene Woodley, Benedict Cumberbatch, and in a breakout performance—Tahar Rahim as Mohamedou Ould Slahi.
Slahi was held for years (it’s a shocking number, one you can discover on your own by watching this important film) at the Guantanamo Bay detention camp, a United States military prison, located within Guantanamo Bay Naval Base off the gorgeous shores of Cuba. In 2001 he was picked up by his country’s police, under pressure from the Americans after the terrorist attacks, in his native Mauritania.
Without a word to his mother or family, he disappeared. Seems the U.S. government was concerned about a call he got from his cousin on Osama bin Laden’s phone. That was it. The extent of the evidence against him was that fateful phone call, which he admitted to not having any nefarious intentions.
It would be years before human rights lawyer Nancy Hollander (Foster) and her legal team, led by Teri Duncan (Woodley), would meet with him at Gitmo and even that meeting was severely restrictive. Thanks to the U.S. Supreme Court, Habeas Corpus was said to apply to prisoners at Gitmo, thus allowing Hollander to step in and defend Slahi.
The Mauritanian is helmed by Kevin Macdonald, the incredibly talented filmmaker who gave us the Oscar-winning The Last King of Scotland and the thrilling Black Sea. His take on this tale requires patience and that is meant as a compliment. Knowing the injustice that is going on, much of which we disturbingly get to see, one will want to race to the “does he find justice” part. It is the journey that makes this story special as it not only shines a light on a dark period of American history, but it also is a tribute to the human spirit and the innate belief that justice is a right that isn’t constrained by borders.
Macdonald interweaves the past, the present, and everything in-between as the film progresses. With each time we’re exposed to Slahi’s world, look for your temperature to rise—due to Rahim’s searing, heartbreaking, and inspiring performance, as well as the lengths the U.S. government went to keep what was going on at Gitmo quiet. Like many other moments in history, truth rises. One of the spokes in that wheel of justice is Macdonald’s film. The filmmaker, if nothing else, when it comes to The Mauritanian, has documented in the medium that most people these days respond to. We now have a cinematic chronicle of the human rights abuses that the United States government employed in their tragic search for justice after 9/11.
Speaking of justice, Rahim does the real-life Slahi some major righteousness with his announcement of a performance. It is incredible. The minutest details of a persona that the actor has captured, not only humanizes this individual who was thought to be the mastermind behind the bin Laden orchestrated attack on America on September 11, 2001, but illustrates that even his first interrogators found a kinship with him where one even called him “brother.” There is an approachability and affability to Slahi that Rahim captures that could not be more important to the overall arc of the film. He is self-effacing, with a penchant for humor (even in a language that is not his own) that literally disarms a room. Stay through the credits because there are some videos of the real man and even in those few moments, other than thinking how astonishing his story was, one is left with one impression—Rahim is a force of nature performer whose future I will follow quite closely.
He spends a criminal amount of time in Gitmo and his personal evolution to partially broken man is embodied with such care, sensitivity, and respect by Rahim, that it couldn’t be more of a salute to an individual whose belief in justice wavered, but never disappeared, over his many years in the military prison. When he begins to get tortured viciously in every conceivable way you can imagine, the actor embodies the assault on an innocent man so exasperatedly it will literally take your breath away.
Even after all of the terror, when Slahi finally is allowed to meet with an attorney after years, that personality still is in there and Rahim’s chemistry with Foster and Woodley will only add to the viewers’ impressiveness with the French-born actor.
It’s one thing to be called smart, it is a whole different elephant to show it. We learn that The Mauritanian earned a scholarship to attend school as a teenager in Germany. This is one sharp tack. How Rahim embodies that aspect of this man’s personality toolbox illustrates his intelligence. This is one genius portraying another.
Foster is her usual awesome self. This is a role she was born to play. Her real-life passion for issues such as human rights is well documented. Macdonald’s film allows her a vehicle to raise awareness of a dark period on that front when it should have been a time of great unity. If you remember, in the months after that fateful September day, it was a permeating sense of national togetherness. Then, the Bush Administration hijacked that country-wide sentiment, and the public allowed its government to set up a military prison where hundreds would be detained, and only a handful ever charged. They would send us into another Middle Eastern country militarily that had absolutely nothing to do with 9/11. But I digress…
The Oscar-winning actress portrays Hollander as a fierce and no-nonsense legal eagle. She is a soul who is obsessed with what she can prove and the heart of this case. Whether her client is guilty or not, there is something much larger at work here. That’s the Constitution. Hollander’s all about an individual’s right to a fair and speedy trial, something missing massively from every single person held at Gitmo.
Woodley is solid, even if her character isn’t as fully developed as we’d wish it were—but the actress brings empathetic excellence to the role of Duncan that encapsulates Hollander’s right-hand woman.
The supporting character that truly mesmerized should hardly surprise, given his past history. Cumberbatch does it again and this time it is his turn as the prosecutor, in this case, Stuart Couch. His The Mauritanian journey is one that will leave you stunned and seismically altered. Couch is the military attorney charged with bringing charges against Slahi. He could not have a more powerful personal reason to see this man get the lethal injection that the Justice Department desires. The Imitation Game star deserves some serious Oscar buzz for Supporting Actor—frankly, so too does the actor behind the titular character.
Then again, the film itself should be a Best Picture contender!
Grade: A