Libertas's "Dirty Harry" writes that Angelina Jolie's new A Mighty Heart, in which she plays the widow of the brutally slain Daniel Pearl is "a tragic and important story" that's "told by director Michael Winterbottom in a quasi-documentary style complete with shaky cam, jump cuts, idle chatter, and a willful determination to see Jolie win an Oscar and not portray jihadists as the dangerous madmen they are":

However, if you oppose fighting terrorists (or at least George W. Bush fighting terrorists) there’s a danger to adding an emotional investment to this story. It may make some who see the film more eager to go after the bad guys. And we can’t have that, can we? No, better to gut the narrative with clinical detachment and simply point to the subject matter rather than its handling as a sign of your own importance.

Hopefully they'll have better luck in the next one.

Update: Debbie Schlussel is, if anything, even more brutal in her review; it certainly sounds like this film's excoriation is well-deserved.