There exist two major works on the life of Golden Age conqueror Sultan Amir Timur Pasha; one by medieval Persian scholar Ali Yazdi Sharif Ud Din, the other by an equally gifted biographer called Ahmad Ibn Arabshah. The former of the aforementioned texts describes the Asian warrior king as a just, pious and honourable visionary, the other damns him as a barbaric usurper with no regard for human life. Hence it should come as no surprise to learn that Arabshah was Timur's enemy, and Sharif Ud Din his friend; for the truth, more often than not, resides somewhere in between adoring praise & bitter condemnation. One could say the same about 'A Mighty Heart', director Michael Winterbottom's well acted, though thematically limited, adaptation of Marianne Pearl's deeply personal, gut wrenching account of her husband's disappearance and eventual murder in rural Pakistan. Angelina Jolie puts in a powerhouse performance as Marianne, and we sympathise with her agonising ordeal in spite of knowing the outcome. Daniel Pearl (played with mild mannered conviction by film & TV actor Dan Futterman, best known for 'The Birdcage' and 'Shooting Fish') was reported to have been a Wall Street journalist who set out to interview Islamic militants in Pakistan's North West Frontier Province (an Asian equivalent of North America's badlands or the Australian outback), but was kidnapped by terrorists in Karachi on 23rd January 2002. His harrowing last moments captured on film: Pearl was made to declare his Jewish faith, crouched in a position inflicted upon hostages held in Guantanamo Bay and killed. It was a brutal, savage act when seen from one perspective, but the truth, as always, and especially in an age of engineered misinformation; is never as straightforward as we're led to believe. For there are facts, troubling facts, which if denied, do as greater disservice to the truth as embracing externally manipulated paradigms constructed to serve a sinister political agenda: Daniel's father; Yehuda Judea Pearl was, in his youth, an Isreali military conscript with alleged intimate, post-service links to Sayeret Matkal, Mossad & other anti-Semitic Zionist terror groups. Maybe the younger Peal was, as his captors are said to have claimed, an Israeli spy / agent provocateur, alternatively; his race, dual-nationality and demeanour made him the perfect patsy for Anglo-American-Israeli imperialism: An unfortunate pawn in one of their many false flag terror ops; useful not only in promoting the so-called 'war on terror' in Pakistan, but reinforcing Israel's inane idea that any nation resisting the neo-fascist, antediluvian tyranny of Zionism, is also a hotbed of anti-Jewish barbarism. And yet we mustn't overlook the possibility that sometimes, sons are punished in place of their fathers: one recalls the cowardly, false flag murder / beheading of young anti-war activist Nick Berg allegedly committed by U.S. troops in 'Abu Ghraib'. And the fact that Berg's father; prominent peace campaigner Michael Berg, was mentioned on a leaked hit-list composed by Zionist sympathisers on a far right-wing Republican website, his son taken into U.S. custody in Iraq hours before his grisly murder was filmed and uploaded. Experts may state that Pearl's murder from a rational, investigative stance, bears all the hallmarks of a false flag; everything from the dubiously named, non-existent terror group (i.e. 'National Movement for the Restoration of Pakistani Sovereignty'), presence of U.S. approved contracted mercenaries and the proven siphoning of aid. 'A Mighty Heart', in spite of its subject matter, isn't particularly interested in the politics of international terror but decides instead to focus on the human drama / search elements; as dedicated Karachi cops led by Irfan Khan and accompanied by creepy American mercenary Will Patton, break down doors, torture suspects and set wire taps. At times, it appears as if Winterbottom is satirizing the Pakistani government's desire to volunteer itself as an overeager, embarrassingly obedient lieutenant for U.S. imperialism; even going so far as to prove how terrorism takes hold without having any characters emphasis it, whilst Pakistan's leader faces a predicament not dissimilar to that of Odysseus the Greek king of Ithaca; forced to join Agamemnon's wars of empire for the sake of his own country. But despite such a wealth of material, 'A Mighty Heart' fails to convey how one heinous event fits into the bigger picture, which only makes for a frustratingly tepid two hours. Angelina Jolie's look in this movie evoked memories of Shakespeare's muse in Sonnet 130 and her Marianne Peal comes across as a quietly courageous, essentially decent woman struggling to find her voice on an unplayable chessboard of socio-political machinations, moves and countermoves. I find it odd, however, that that the same critics who now praise Jolie's emotive, grief-stricken scream as the pinnacle of good acting, ridiculed the exact same performance when Angelina's queen Olympias was informed of her son's death in 'Alexander' (2004). Another film that deals with the same subject matter, albeit fictionalised for greater dramatic resonance, is 'Infinite Justice' (2006); an independent shot on HD-DV and released about the same time as 'A Mighty Heart'. 'Infinite Justice' (no famous stars save Jennifer Calvert, known only to those who used to watch 'Spatz' in the early 90s) is, in many ways, a better film; as its not bound to any source material hence has a lot more room for narrative manoeuvre and thematic expansion. 'A Mighty Heart'is a well acted, nicely shot but ultimately unsatisfying picture.