The Whistleblower

2 Stars

When a movie is "inspired by true events," the ideal is that the real-story backdrop will lend an air of authenticity to the drama, but often it inadvertently leads to excessive earnestness or aggrandizement. "The Whistleblower" is one such film, too well-intentioned for its own good.

The movie tells the story of Kathy Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who signs on with a private contractor to act as a U.N. peacekeeper in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999. She goes for the money, really, needing it to aid in a custody battle for her kids, but she finds herself unable to remain a bystander when confronted by horrors she never expected.

Initially assigned strictly to monitor local police, Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) finds most of them corrupt, lazy or ethnically biased, and she soon uncovers a sex-trafficking ring in which teenage girls largely service the peacekeeping force she is a part of. Further, international personnel have become involved in the trafficking. She soon discovers that trying to help the victims puts her outside the boundaries of her job, caught between the bureaucracy of international law and the imperatives of private corporations, a legal no man's land where everyone and anyone seems shielded from responsibility for reprehensible acts.

The feature debut of director Larysa Kondracki, who co-wrote the screenplay with Eilis Kirwan, the film careens from Bolkovac's personal story of redemption and resolve to some kind of internationalist paranoia-conspiracy thriller, never quite reconciling the gap between the two. If the film often shows Bolkovac as determined and good-hearted but essentially in over her head, one is tempted to say it does the same for Kondracki. While "The Whistleblower" has a certain rough-hewn, emotional heft, it still feels unharnessed and beyond Kondracki's control.

When it seems that Bolkovac should be her most dynamic, active and angry, she starts to crumble and often cry, making her character seem more human but also somehow less effectual.

Still, at its core, "The Whistleblower" asks a viewer to consider the depths of depravity one human can inflict upon another, and it almost goes without saying that Weisz brings intelligence, grace and wily, unexpectedly sultry earthiness to her role. In supporting turns, Vanessa Redgrave, David Strathairn and Danish actor Nikolaj Lie Kaas make the most of small parts.

Though more brutish than elegant, "The Whistleblower" does have a certain charged, unvarnished power in its examination of how people can harm those they are enlisted to protect.

 

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"The Whistleblower" Movie Trailer

 

"The Whistleblower" Movie Review

 

MPAA rating: R (for disturbing violent content including a brutal sexual assault, graphic nudity and language).

Running time: 1:58.

Cast: Rachel Weisz (Kathryn Bolkovac); Vanessa Redgrave (Madeleine Rees); Monica Bellucci (Laura Leviani); David Strathairn (Peter Ward); Nikolaj Lie Kaas (Jan Van Der Velde).

Credits: Written and directed by Larysa Kondracki; co-written by Eilis Kirwan; produced by Christina Piovesan, Celine Rattray. A Samuel Goldwyn Films release.

 

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'The Whistleblower' tells the story of Kathy Bolkovac, a Nebraska police officer who signs on with a private contractor to act as a U.N. peacekeeper in Bosnia-Herzegovina in 1999. She goes for the money, really, needing it to aid in a custody battle for her kids, but she finds herself unable to remain a bystander when confronted by horrors she never expected

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