Michael Winterbottom’s sober film about Daniel Pearl, the Wall Street Journal reporter who was kidnapped and decapitated in Karachi in 2002, is a harrowing account about the frantic efforts to get him back. Angelina Jolie plays Pearl’s pregnant wife, Mariane – on whose memoir the film is based – with a rigour and passion that up until now seemed utterly beyond her. It’s a humbling experience.

The film begins on the day Pearl (Dan Futterman) fails to come home. He is working on a story about the shoe-bomber Richard Reid, and arranges an interview with a leading militant extremist. There are taxis, blindfolds, and a chilly face-to-face.

Mariane’s intrepid effort to track down her husband has all the ingredients of a first-class thriller. The unnerving detail is that Winterbottom isn’t playing with fiction.

The house of a colleague, Asra Nomani (Archie Panjabi), becomes search headquarters. The world’s press corps lays siege as the story snowballs. As with United 93 and All the President’s Men there is confusion of the first order. The Pakistan police, the FBI, diplomats and journalists tread on each other’s toes as they chase contradictory leads. There is a cruel conflict of agendas.

At times it’s impossible to figure out exactly who is in charge. The film chops from briefings to the chaotic streets of Karachi without a by-your-leave. An uneasy alliance is forged between an American security agent, Randall Bennett (Will Patton), the Wall Street Journal Editor, John Bussey (Denis O’Hare), and the head of the Pakistan’s brand new counter-terrorism unit, Captain Javed Nabib (an outstanding piece of melancholia by Irfan Khan). What the kidnapping means to each character is silently glimpsed and brilliantly framed.

Sandwiched between these tense males is Jolie’s defiant Mariane: calm, pragmatic, hard-eyed, but as tightly strung as a violin. It’s the first time I’ve seen Jolie wear an authentic character rather than just perfect skin. Her blast of grief when Mariane hears the dreaded news will raise hairs on the back of your neck.

15, 98mins

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