them a lot to work with — we learn almost
nothing about them as people outside the case.
With actors of this caliber, that’s a shame.
Rahim, though, has plenty of room to shine.
The actor finds a way to infuse almost every
scene with humor and humanity. We first meet
Slahi at a wedding celebration in Mauritania,
two months after 9/11. The police show up
to question him about ties to al-Qaida. “The
Americans are going crazy,” they say. He
assures his mother he’ll be back soon — and
asks her to save him some food. It’s clear she
fears she may never see him again (in fact,
she didn’t.)
Four years later in Albuquerque, lawyer
Hollander is approached to use her security
clearance to help find Slahi, on behalf of
his desperate family. She has no idea of his
innocence or guilt, but asks: “Since when did
we start locking people up without a trial in
this country?” She enlists a junior colleague, Teri
Duncan, to help (Woodley, underused.)
Meanwhile we meet Couch (Cumberbatch, also
a producer here), who’s tapped by superiors to
lead the prosecution. They know he has skin in
the game: his good buddy was a pilot on one of
the planes that hit the World Trade Center. He
asks: “When do we start?” It’s made clear that
the goal is the death penalty.
The film tracks these two as they pursue their
cases, each stymied by government restrictions
on information. Hollander receives cartons of
fully redacted documents; Couch seeks crucial
details about interrogations. For each, the
ultimate discovery of the torture Slahi went
through will change the dynamics of the case.