Direction: Kevin Macdonald
Country: USA
The Scottish director Kevin Macdonald has a knack for music documentaries (Marley, 2012; Whitney, 2018) and political thrillers (State of Play, 2009; The Last King of Scotland, 2006). Falling into the latter category, The Mauritanian tells the true story of Mohamedou Ould Salahi, an electrical engineer who was locked up for 14 years - from 2002 to 2016 - in the American military prison of Guantanamo without a single charge against him. He became a main suspect on the 9/11 attacks after receiving a call from his cousin and Bin Laden’s spiritual adviser, Mahfouz Ould al-Walid. For the American government, this call, allegedly made from Bin Laden’s own phone, automatically established him as a member of the terrorist group Al Qaeda .
Subjected to multiple interrogations and all kinds of torture - from sleep deprivation to temperature extremes to beatings and humiliation - Salahi (Tahar Rahim) finds glimmers of hope for his case in the serious defense attorney Nancy Hollander (Jodie Foster), who gradually sees her client as a witness rather than a suspect.
The plot was based on Salahi’s 2015 memoir, but the screenwriters - Michael Bronner, Rory Haines and Sohrab Noshirvani - gave it a choppy articulation and tedious developments. The tension doesn't fade in this film, simply because it was never there, and that inability to create suspense is what plagued the film all along. By filling the central roles with Foster and Rahim, Macdonald could have used a much bigger bite if the script wasn’t so stiff and smug.
The Mauritanian is a disarticulate, time-consuming, and nearly anesthetized drama thriller that’s not worth investing time in. Read the book instead.
