Review of The Mauritanian, directed by Kevin Macdonald

Before writing this blog post, I was thinking about how one of my goals in life is to see as many movies as possible before I’m unable to or pass away. Same with books and theater—I’m realizing that there are so many things that I want to consume with my life, and finding a balance with the average American workweek is certainly going to be interesting.

That said, I try to watch as many movies as possible, even if I have a hunch a movie is going to be out of my taste range. Considering I write a lot on this blog about what I did and did not like when it comes to entertainment, I’ve found that my sense of self has become really curated. I know myself better now taste wise.

The Mauritanian is a movie I briefly heard about in the past, but did not really have an interest in seeing if we’re going to be honest. The very basic premise I knew did not sound up my alley at the time.

So what changed? I was doing research about the country of Mauritania, and saw this appear on my Netflix recommendations. My cookies certainly were working overtime I guess that day. And so I decided to watch the movie and see what was going to happen.

Here’s my review.

An American lawyer tries to help a Mauritanian man detained under the premise of inciting terrorism.

The story of this movie begins several years prior to its current day. Two months after the September 11 attacks on the World Trade Center, a man named Mohamedou Ould Slahi is in his home country of Mauritanian. When a policeman comes up to him saying that some Americans want to have a chat, Slahi agrees to do so, which ultimately leads to his arrest.

Please note that this is based on a real case—Slahi is a real person, and the movie is based on the memoir he published about the events that took place. Slahi had ties to actual organizations in the SWANA region, but was detained without any charges for over a decade in Guantanamo Bay.

Fast forward to 2005. Lawyer Nancy Hollander, who is based out of New Mexico, finds out from a French lawyer about a potential case brought forth by Slahi’s family. They haven’t heard anything from him since he was arrested, and they recently found out the United States had taken him out of the country because they think he was involved with 9/11.

Nancy decides to agree to check in on the case for the French lawyer, Emmanuel, because she has the proper security clearance. At the same time, Stuart Couch, a prosecutor, is in New Orleans and is told about the case. He is wanted to be the prosecutor for it, and a key argument here is going to be that Slahi is one of the people who brought a key perpetrator into the 9/11 plot into the organization.

Nancy flies down to Guantanamo with Teri, another lawyer. They meet with Slahi, who decides that they can be his lawyers for the case, as Stuart goes through all of the reports and files on the man to try and argue his case in court.

Nancy gets a letter from Slahi, which causes a major revelation from her end. We then switch back to Stuart, who goes through the files and learns that Slahi was sexually abused and assaulted while he was being questioned by the guards. He was also threatened with the rape of his mother, which led him to make a false confession of being a terrorist to the Americans.

Stuart resigns from the case after this, as he can’t argue with that in mind. Teri also creates friction with Nancy, as she thinks that the case is a lost cause and that Slahi was definitely involved with the terrorism in question. We skip to 2009, where Slahi goes to court, and 2010 he learns that his plea was successful.

He was told he would be released, but that was not true immediately. It took another seven years, in which his mother died and he was never able to see her again. We then see footage of Slahi returning back home, and the movie tells us he got married to an American lawyer and they had a son together.

Overall Thoughts

I think my vibe lately has just been watching movies that teach me something new about the world and people living in it. I had no idea about Slahi’s case until I watched the movie, and while I knew the basic synopsis going into it, I didn’t really have a clue about what the movie was about.

Like it might not be the most entertaining movie in the world, which is something I wrote in my last movie review of Shirley, but it’s important. These kinds of narratives change lives, and might help us from preventing tragedies in singular lives from occurring.

So go watch this if you’re interested. I do think it’s worthwhile.

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