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Infinite Justice (2006)

Director: Jamil Dehlavi

Time Out rating

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4 reviews

Movie review

From Time Out London

French-Pakistani filmmaker Jamil Dehlavi unwisely co-opts elements of the story of Daniel Pearl to forge a complex and international post-9/11 thriller that clumsily shoehorns every hot topic under the sun into a digitally shot drama of high aims, middling production values and low intelligence. It’s 2001, and American TV reporter Arnold Silverman (Kevin Collins) is a prisoner of Islamic fundamentalists in Pakistan who kills time by playing chess with one of his captors, mild-mannered Kamal (Raza Jaffrey). Flashbacks rewind through both men’s lives: Silverman is a idealistic journalist who lost his sister on 9/11 and who defies his bosses to pursue a terrorist, while Kamal is a Brit for whom bullying at his genteel school was the beginning of his radicalisation. Dehlavi wants to show that well-intentioned and intelligent people exist on both sides of the divide but are often manipulated and betrayed by their superiors, whether jihadists or television producers, but his recourse to wild conspiracy and the crutch of Pearl’s murder does his case no favours whatsoever.

Author: Dave Calhoun

Time Out London Issue 1945: November 27-December 4 2007

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User reviews of this film

CCcraker said...

Posted on Feb 23 2011 21:00 The ending was tailor made for Pakistan. See we Muslims didn't kill Pearl; it was the CIA. Of course, we are not short of dumb people to draw dumb conclusions from this dumb movie.

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Jason McFarlane said...

Posted on May 04 2008 23:07 Dumb movie which attempts to dumb down and apologise for the rise of Islamist terror

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james teller said...

Posted on Feb 20 2008 08:26 silly moral equivalence and a patchwork approach to reality and fiction make this ultimately a low brow melodramatic piece of conspiracy. the ending was just baffling and jaffrey's character has no basis in reality and is as such just stupid

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Christina Camberwell said...

Posted on Nov 28 2007 13:06 I don't know which film Dave Calhoun was watching but Infinite Justice is a passionately directed and intelligent thriller and is by far the best film of this post 9/11 political perspective. Considering the fact that Infinite Justice was made well before any of the current big budget films addressing similar topics it is an ambitious low budget feature. If Dave Calhoun cannot pay enough attention to a film to even get the lead character's name correct then perhaps his views on this feat of great story-telling are thwarted by his lack of concentration. With brilliant acting from up and coming actors, namely Raza Jaffrey, and beautiful filming in downtown Karachi this film is highly watchable and recommended to anyone who is interested in an informed narrative with a deftly constructed political message from an underrated veteran director.

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