Hunt for Justice

Lazy movie made by a lazy director. The characters are grotesque. Despite the tragic of this war, there is no emotion at all in the movie. Symbolism is artificial and inefficient (and old Bosnian woman giving a photo of her son to Arbour will "concretize" her willingness, will awake the super-mother sleeping inside her, a corpse eaten by worms to show the horror of genocide... too much is sometimes worst than not enough).

This movie is only an advertisement, an empty elegy to a woman who is not a hero. She worked for United Nations. Remember UN failed to protect civilians at Srebrenica. Who are the true heroes of this war? A Canadian judge leading post-mortem trial for atrocities that happened mostly because her organization failed to prevent them? Where is the criticism in this movie?

This movie is badly told and awfully screened. In few scenes there's irrelevant data or information given to a public such as 'Kosovo- Macedonian border, January 1999'. Actually, that's Serbian-Macedonian border. Also, I find that it favours one side only. The atrocities done in Racak village were given without information that 2 Serbian policemen have been ambushed and killed and one seriously injured a day before this killing. Dialogues with generals in Sarajevo(in first 30 minutes of film) were silly and cannot be taken seriously.

All in all, if you haven't got anything else to do, and feeling bored, watch this movie.

While the story of the UN International Criminal Tribunal for the Former Yugoslavia Tribunal, and of Louise Arbour's work at it as Prosecutor, is exciting, interesting and highly relevant, this film does it no justice. On the plus side, it does contain archival material and some location shots, which contributes to authenticity. The courtrooms themselves are accurately represented, as are -- mostly -- courtroom proceedings, in as far as they are seen. It is also clear that the case files were consulted when writing the script. However, the film is, regrettably, also replete with ludicrous mistakes and misconstruals, poor acting and clichés. Just some examples -- and as these might be budget-related problems, they are the most innocuous -- the same trio of generals turn up to plague the brave prosecutor both in the field and at NATO HQ; the same guards seem to be on duty all the time and at all trials; and one and the same interpreter seems to be at work 24/7, working from and into all languages known to man. Procedural and factual errors also abound, a Russian-speaking woman is passed off as a Croat, and there is a good helping of soppiness to boot. Watch this film only if you can't be bothered reading a good book on the subject.

Hunt for Justice is about the setup of Slobadon Milosevic for his trial in the Hague. While it was a little too clinical in presentation the subject matter could have gotten very depressing very quickly. A Canadian Judge, Louise Arbour, becomes the Chief War Crimes Prosecutor at the International Criminal Tribunal for the UN in Yugoslavia. She battles everyone to pull out the evidence that sent Milosevic to trial. Not a bad docu-drama with class A directing and production work. The 'evidence' was disturbing by the shear discussion of the facts, happily they didn't go into too much detail and no real pictures of the tortured.

I found this movie to be educational, entertaining and very moving. I was impressed when I learned of just how much Justice Arbour had contributed in during her time in Kosovo.

Wendy Crewson is highly under rated and it is good to see her again in a Canadian production. Other easily recognizable stars are Leslie Hope (24) and John Corbett (Sex in the City.)

While the story line of this movie may not be completely factual it did leave me with the desire to learn more about the word of Arbour. A great movie for inspiring young women.

I say the movie is a "must see."