Based on the NY Times best-selling memoir "Guantánamo Diary" by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, this is the true story of Slahi's fight for freedom after being detained and imprisoned without charge by the U.S. Government for years. Alone and afraid, Slahi finds allies in defense attorney Nancy Hollander and her associate Teri Duncan who battle the U.S. government in a fight for justice that tests their commitment to the law and their client at every turn. Their controversial advocacy... (Full plot summary below)
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Based on the NY Times best-selling memoir "Guantánamo Diary" by Mohamedou Ould Slahi, this is the true story of Slahi's fight for freedom after being detained and imprisoned without charge by the U.S. Government for years. Alone and afraid, Slahi finds allies in defense attorney Nancy Hollander and her associate Teri Duncan who battle the U.S. government in a fight for justice that tests their commitment to the law and their client at every turn. Their controversial advocacy, along with evidence uncovered by a formidable military prosecutor, Lt. Colonel Stuart Couch, uncovers shocking truths and ultimately proves that the human spirit cannot be locked up.
Leave your thoughts about The Mauritanian.
| The PlaylistChristian GallichioIn the end, The Mauritanian is an efficient procedural that condemns the Bush-era treatment of detainees more effectively than any other recent narrative film. It’s an affecting, but nevertheless tragic, watch. |
| Screen RantMae AbdulbakiThe Mauritanian is an incredibly powerful, poignant, enraging film, one that is uplifted by an incredibly magnetic lead performance by Tahar Rahim. |
| Boston GlobeTy BurrAs directed by Kevin Macdonald (The Last King of Scotland), it’s a steady, compelling accounting of events that intends to leave you infuriated and succeeds. |
| Entertainment WeeklyLeah GreenblattDirector Kevin MacDonald (The Last King of Scotland, Touching the Void) gives the movie both the global sweep of a thriller and the more granular details of a procedural, though in the end hardly any of it takes place in a courtroom. |
| Chicago Sun-TimesRichard RoeperA somewhat convoluted and occasionally formulaic but disturbingly effective legal political procedural. |
| Christian Science MonitorPeter RainerIt’s not simply that it’s “too soon” for such movies. That’s highly debatable. More to the point is that the stark reality of these explosive events as we live through them – in the news, in real time, on TV and through investigative documentaries – potentially outflanks any attempt to dramatize them using embellished scenarios and famous actors. |
| Original-CinJim SlotekThough it’s a movie with an identity crisis, Rahim’s magnetic performance carries enough of The Mauritanian to make it a worthwhile watch. |
| CNNBrian LowryThe Mauritanian is a bit of a throwback -- a solid, old-fashioned piece of entertainment, but not a great movie. But in its objective to present what being wrong meant for our view of "American justice" and democracy, that's one thing that the film gets very right. |
| The Globe and Mail (Toronto)Barry HertzWhile Macdonald manages to come up with one of the most impressively brutal cut-to-black endings in recent memory, the rest of this feature cannot hope to match the power of his cast. |
| VarietyPeter DebrugeThe story gains momentum as it goes, and by the end, it’s positively gripping. |
