The Mauritanian (2021)

 

            

                “The Mauritanian” is based on the memoirs (“Guantanamo Diary”) of Mohamedou Ould Slahi.  He was held for 14 years at Guantanamo Bay for suspected involvement in the 9/11 attacks.  The movie was directed by Kevin Macdonald (“The Eagle”).  It premiered on Amazon Prime.  The film was well-received.  It was nominated for Golden Globes for Best Actor (Tahar Rahim) and Supporting Actress (Jodi Foster).  It was also nominated for several BAFTAs:  Best Film, Outstanding British Film, Best Actor, Adapted Screenplay, and Cinematography.

                 In November, 2001, in Mauritania, Slahi (Rahim) is at a wedding.  His cousin is associated with Bin Laden.  Slahi is taken by the police for what he is confident will be a short time.  Instead, he is not seen or heard from for three years.  Four years after his arrest, his case lands on the desk of Nancy Hollander (Foster).  She takes it pro bono.  She learns that Sahim was imprisoned at Guantanamo because he supposedly fought for Al Qaeda, and helped organize and recruit for the 9/11 hijackers.  He's like the Forrest Gump of Al Qaeda -  where ever you look, he’s there.  Hollander is helped by her assistant Teri Duncan (Shailene Woodley).  They will go head-to-head with Lt. Col. Stuart Couch (Benedict Cumberbatch).  A friend of his was on one of the planes that hit the Twin Towers.  Hollander and Duncan visit the prison to interview Slahi.  He is understandably bitter and untrusting.  There is some conflict between the defense attorneys as Duncan thinks he’s innocent, but Hollander does not.  She plans to make the case about lack of evidence.  The movie flashes back to his interrogations.  At this point, the movie enters its two tracks -  his torture through the years and the attempt by Hollander to get him released.  The torture runs the gamut of water torture, heavy metal music, stress positions, humiliation by women, and threatening to imprison his mother. This leads up to the trial.

                “The Mauratanian” is a movie that all Americans should see.  You can still be patriotically bitter about 9/11 and yet admit that some wrongs were committed in overly zealous treatment of suspected terrorists.  Gitmo became infamous as the maximum security facility housing the most dangerous jihadists.  Undoubtedly, many of the prisoners belong there.  But there are a few like Slahi who were wrongfully detained and then tortured to make the detainment seem rightful.  His confession can be attributed to the success of enhanced interrogation techniques.  The movie is effective in depicting what he went through.  The cinematography uses surreal imagery to show the hallucinations Slahi underwent.  Keep in mind that what he received was worse than the movie portrays.

                The strength of the movie is in the acting.  The cast is stellar with Rahim and Foster standing out.  Cumberbatch and Woodley help make a strong quartet at the core of the film.  Hollander and Duncan are stereotypes from courtroom dramas.  Hollander is the cynical veteran who will work hard to exonerate someone she does not believe is innocent.  Duncan is the bleeding-heart liberal who refuses to believe he is guilty.  Couch is the most interesting character because usually the prosecutor is a villain in movies like this.  His character arc is not a familiar one.  Overall, the plot follows the pattern of most military justice movies.  The format of flashing back to the various tortures makes the film seem fresh. 

It won’t seem fresh to any conservatives that force themselves to watch it.  The film is clearly liberal.  It does not balance Salim/Hollander/Duncan with an equally determined prosecuting attorney.  Normally, a courtroom movie where there is a person of color on trial, you would have a white savior as his attorney.  Hollander and Duncan do fit this trope, but the movie is dominated by Salhi, especially through the flashbacks.  It does not flash back to the 9/11 attacks.  It assumes the audience knows what happened on 9/11, but is ignorant about what happened afterwards to bring the perpetrators to justice.  Some of the methods were featured in “Zero Dark Thirty”, but “The Mauritanian” covers them in more depth. “Zero Dark Thirty” was criticized for pushing the narrative that harsh interrogation got answers that led to Bin Laden.  Few have criticized “The Mauritanian” for showing how the techniques led to a false confession.

“The Mauritanian” is an important movie.  We have had other movies that have tried to show the darker side of the war on terrorism.  Movies like “Standard Operating Procedure”, “Rendition”, “Redacted”, and “Lions for Lambs”.  The importance is that Slahi’s story is a true one.  It packs more of a whallop because of this.  It is the best movie to chronicle the situation at Gitmo.  It does not smack of propaganda, although it is one-sided.  Both the Bush, Jr. and Biden administrations would argue it is not the story of an innocent man.  However, it is hard to watch it and not think the war on terrorism has been marked by some mistakes and violations of justice.  That does not mean that we sank to the level of the terrorists, it means the war on terrorism has led to questionable tactics on our side.

GRADE =  B+

HISTORICAL ACCURACY:  How accurate is it?  Considering the script, the movie makers did not bother to ask for the chance to film at Gitmo.  Instead, a very realistic set was created, with heavy input from Slahi.  Slahi also helped with the script.  One must admit that the script is based on “Guantanamo Diary”, so it is Slahi’s version of what happened.  And he had reason to tell a story that would create public sympathy.  The movie is very accurate if you believe Slahi’s account.  There is certainly less reason to believe it compared to the government’s case.  Slahi was actually arrested in his home, not at a wedding party.  This was two months after 9/11.  Although he was never charged, the government’s evidence pointed to his being a recruiter for Al Qaeda and a facilitator of 9/11.  He did fight in Afghanistan with the mujahideen against the communist government.  He later was trained by Al Qaeda and swore allegiance.  He claims he cut ties with the organization, but the CIA insisted he was a sleeper agent and there is some circumstantial evidence supporting this.  He did have some connections with Al Qaeda, but they seem to be sporadic and not consequential.  He admitted to being involved in 9/11 because of the torture.  All the torture in the movie is representative of American interrogation techniques.  Although Slahi claims it was worse in reality, it is also possible that the movie shows methods used against various prisoners and puts them all on Slahi.

As far as the characters, they are true to life.  Hollander was contacted by Slahi’s family.  She did construct her case based on lack of evidence.  As in the movie, Hollander came to believe Slahi’s story and they are friends since.  Duncan was her assistant.  Couch did drop out of the case when he learned the confession had been achieved by way of inhumane methods.  He did have a friend who was one of the pilots whose plane crashed into one of the towers.