Review: Guantanamo thriller The Mauritanian fails to deliver cinematic justice – but thank goodness for Tahar Rahim theglobeandmail.com - get the latest breaking news, showbiz & celebrity photos, sport news & rumours, viral videos and top stories from theglobeandmail.com Daily Mail and Mail on Sunday newspapers.
The horrors of 9/11 and the clamor to bring those responsible for the attacks to justice dominated much of the news in the early 2000s. Few people not in the
Review: Tahar Rahim is the breakout star of The Mauritanian By Cary Darling, Staff Writer
“The Mauritanian,” the powerhouse film from director Kevin Macdonald (“The Last King of Scotland,” “Touching the Void”), is based on a news item of which many moviegoers may be unaware: the 2002 arrest and 14-year imprisonment at Guantánamo of Mauritanian citizen Mohamedou Ould Slahi who was never actually charged with a crime.
Slahi ultimately wrote a bestselling memoir, “Guantánamo Diary,” but even with those who read the book knowing how it all ends “The Mauritanian” is often an engrossing and grueling experience that raises age-old but still pointed questions about what rights a society is willing to jettison in return for presumed safety and security. That it also features two strong performances at its core French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim (so good in the French movie “A Prophet” in 2009) as Slahi, Jodie Foster as his pro-bono ACLU a