I'd watched Taxi Driver a few nights ago, fascinating to see two superb performances from Jodie Foster at age 12 and 59!
Great to see her career still going strong.
Yes I watched this also - it's an important story with some distressing scenes but definitely worth watching. I read somewhere that Benedict C was very ill while filming this in South Africa which have may have contributed to the strange makeup choice - George
We both enjoyed this and the film flew by. Really well made and some great performances from the main cast.
Is it wrong of me to "wish" that it had been a little bit grimmer though? I was expecting there to be some moments when my wife was watching through her fingers but it didn't go there (so probably a relief from her point of view). Whereas the theme of the film was (morally) disturbing the torture scenes didn't have the impact I thought they were going to have; it almost seemed like it had been toned down to make it slightly more palatable for a wider audience.
I'm not sure I'm wording this properly though - and it's probably making me appear slightly sociopathic...!
Excellent, thought provoking film entirely stolen by the lead, as should be with something like this. Good quality PQ as well, how far Amazon has come in under a decade.
I learnt a bit about torture techniques I had never heard of before.
It was annoying me throughout what I had seen the lead (Tahar Rahim) in recently. Slept on it and still couldn’t remember. So looked it up and he was Charles Sobraj in that BBC show The Serpent a few months back. Should have got that really
I nearly didn't bother watching the serpent originally and had recorded the first 2-3 episodes. I then started to watch it and could not stop so binge watched the rest on i-player it was that good.
I really enjoyed this, a solid 8/9 for me.
I checked a few other reviews last week, I can’t understand how some review so poorly. Maybe all this staying at home is affecting my film judgement
I thought Fostors acting was fantastic, just watching Foster...even with that crazy red lippy, she is just so good, nice to see her on the other side of the camera again.
Rahim was superb and of course carried the film. He is also great in Amazon’s The Looming Tower, worth a watch (CIA/FBI’s investigation/mistakes into 9/11), still available in UHD.
I kept trying to figure out if Benedict had a nice hair piece on top, was like a little animal sitting there and as said, the desert tan just looked a little off. I didn’t mind his authoritative bass heavy voice, my subs got a nice workout. I thought he did well though, bar the military rug (and I’m just jealous being a little thin up top).
As for MacDonalds direction and the cinematography / editing, no complaints here.
I watched The Looming Tower series a couple of years back and that too was top notch filmmaking/story telling, if you have not seen it like @steviedr said it's deffo worth watching.
Another recommendation for the Looming Tower here as well. I only watched it a few weeks back but thoroughly enjoyed it.
For those that enjoyed the Mauritanian, there is another film about Guantanamo Bay on Amazon Prime: Camp X-Ray. A drama about one of the prison guards. I thought it was quite interesting and worth watching if you stuck for a movie.