The Mauritanian

In many ways an infuriating drama for its subject matter, and the vile governmental policies that lead to it, but a clunkiness in the telling and an inability to truly engage with its characters outside of their symbolic presences means that it never quite catches fire, despite terrific work from Foster, Rahim and Woodley (Cumberbatch, removed from most of the central action, seems a bit lost at sea). An important story, but may have worked better as a full-blown documentary.

Strangely bloated and even cheesy for a biopic about such an important character of the bloody recent American history. Some emotional punches here and there -- thanks for the cast -- kinda get the job done, but it seems like Macdonald gets constantly overmatched by the own material he's filming. It would've been a blast if properly directed.

As for The Mauritanian (2021), it does a lot of things right, but could also have done more for a stronger emotional effect. Uses way too long for a that humiliating climax everybody knows is coming. Jodie Foster on the other hand does her part perfectly, and you can't fault Tahar Rahim. But right down to it, this is a incredibly important and shameful story of military cowardice that needs to be told, ridiculed and hopefully leads to justice of some kind. Talk about small dick aggression.

Heavy handed with its bias.

Tahar Rahim is good. Some real hammy moments with the lawyers. The movie had real drive and fascination when we left the straightforward legal drama, came back to Rahim's central character, and followed his descent into hell.

Kind of feels like 2010's Green Zone, by which I mean its impact would be far stronger if it had been released during the Bush or early Obama administrations.

Whilst "understandable" in some ways, it is hard to be anything other than truly appalled by the "Gitmo" scandal, and positively sick at the blatant hypocrisy of countless politicians spouting on about "human rights" ... the human rights of those people it suits them to bang on about, of course. But thats just "life" I suppose. Highlighting such injustice is a decent subject for a film, in my book, and TM is a fantastic watch, with 2 (no, make that 4) consummate professionals on display. Great

Happy that they made a movie about the wrongdoings of the US. Black page in US history. Great acting, but this movie probably would have been better as a full-blown documentary

Completely by the numbers but reasonably engaging.

Excellent story about the injustices inflicted by the US government to detainees after 911. It's an important story that needed to be told. My only real complaint with it is that I would have liked to see a lot more of Shailene Woodley in this. Jodie Foster is showing her age. Tahar Rahim was charismatic and engaging in his portrayal. Worth watching but I find myself highly embarrassed by my government for it's involvement in all of the shameful and illegal activities it undertook.

A little too slick to connect properly. But I'd endorse it if you're in the mood for something political.

As a political drama / thriller, it was a pretty good movie, worth watching. Tahar Rahim's performance was outstanding, I hope he will continue to shine in the future.