Looking to raise the money she needs to move closer to her daughter, Nebraska cop Kathy Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) accepts an offer to serve as a peacekeeper in post-war Bosnia. Her first days on the job are filled with run-of-the-mill domestic-violence cases, but she soon uncovers a massive sex-trafficking ring, one that’s moving scores of young women into the crumbling nation. Bolkovac is dumbfounded to find her superiors have no interest in investigating her discovery, but she quickly comes to understand why.

CRITIQUE

The Whistleblower has one huge thing going for it: Rachel Weisz’s fantastic performance. It also one huge thing working against it: an extremely unfocused script. The movie can’t seem to decide if it wants to be a probing exposé of true events or a sordid, pulpy thriller (complete with villains who are presented as one-note caricatures); imagine if Silkwood had been penned by Stieg Larsson and you’ll get an idea of how it plays, and you’ll also get an idea of how awkwardly, muddily told the story is. Because it can’t figure out what it wants to be, the movie’s not very effective at being whatever it actually is.

It would be virtually impossible to make a completely ineffectual movie on this subject; the material is simply too potent for that to occur. There’s something so wrong about the activities portrayed in the movie, so evil, that you can’t help but feel something when you see them visualized, even in a largely fictional form. Violence and cruelty of the type shown here is as sickeningly primal and button-pushing as it gets; it’s like watching someone break the neck of a puppy.

There are moments here that are hard to watch, but the reaction they give rise to is really a reaction to the real-world implications. You don’t react because of any feelings you have for the characters involved or the skill with which the material is being presented, but rather because you know it’s likely that such things actually happen.

The script, by debuting feature director Larysa Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan, spreads its focus around to three characters, which is two too many. In addition to Bolkovac, the movie also tries to tell the stories of Raya (Roxana Condurache), one of the girls unwittingly caught up in the trafficking ring, and her mother (Jeanette Hain), who is desperately trying to find the girl.

This is ostensibly Bolkovac’s story, so I don’t know why the movie takes time away from her. I suppose Kondracki and Kirwan’s intent was to offer a look at all sides of the trafficking trade, show the efforts of those trying to stop it and the effects on those who find themselves dragged into it (make it sort of the Traffic of trafficking), but the script’s too thin and unfocused to pull this off. A movie solely about Bolkovac could have been effective, and a movie about those forced into the trade could have been equally effective; combining the two in a movie of ultimately such narrow scope, though, doesn’t work.

Nor does attempting to turn Bolkovac’s story into a conventional thriller work. I can understand the commercial necessity of structuring and presenting the material in such a manner, but Kondracki and Kirwan adopt a thriller structure without fully understanding how to pull it off.

There’s almost no drive or heat to what Bolkovac does. Her investigation largely consists of her driving across the Bosnian countryside or running through the woods, stopping to be provided information from convenient sources (Vanessa Redgrave’s UN official and David Strathairn’s Internal Affairs officer, who put Weisz on the road to discovery and then try to make sure she doesn’t get caught, come across as contrivances), or pulling unencrypted file after unencrypted file out of a handy computer (which might as well be marked with a sign reading: “Everything You Need Can Be Found Within”). I can’t imagine it could have been easy for the real Bolkovac to get to the heart of what was really going on; I seriously doubt she fell into a pile of pertinent information the way Weisz does here, which has the ironic consequence of marginalizing the character and her efforts.   

Bolkovac is portrayed as determined and headstrong, with a strong moral and ethical core, which I imagine is true. But the movie can’t simply leave it at that, unwisely trying to give her a personal reason for refusing to give up, even going so far as having her zero in on Raya. This comes across as more than a little trite, to say nothing of obvious and heavy-handed. There’s a lot of clunky, brick-thick exposition in the movie’s opening scenes (which play like the opening bits of a bad TV movie), everything spelled out in bold letters, making it impossible for anyone not to glom on later when Bolkovac singles the girl out.

To make matter worse, there’s a later scene where Bolkovac is pulled off the case by a superior, and the dialogue smartly covers what was ham-fistedly laid out in the opening, making two or three of the movie’s first scenes completely unnecessary. (That the movie beats you over the head with something and then later reiterates it in a cannily subtle manner should give you a good idea of just how wonky the storytelling is.)

The thriller elements lead to certain expectations, and those expectations aren’t met by the movie’s climaxes; this isn’t a case of the movie subverting convention or organically growing into something greater, but is instead just another example of the clunky storytelling. The plotlines fork near the end, each reaching its inevitable conclusion, neither really jibing with the direction the movie had previously taken. Bolkovac’s story ends in more or less the way it actually did, although the movie leaves out a couple details.

Problem is, the last moments with Bolkovac play like a coda, with no transition between them and what’s come immediately before, this despite the fact there’s obviously a significant gap in terms of both time and event. I wanted to know how Bolkovac went from point A to what’s essentially point C or D, but the movie didn’t seem at all concerned with explaining anything. Nor is it concerned with wrapping up dangling plotlines, explaining what happened to characters who vanish, or providing anything beyond a surface-level look at these events. That’s too bad. (Bolkovac has coauthored a book on her experiences, and I can’t help but think I’d have been better off reading it and skipping the movie.)

It’s been reported that Kondracki spent years trying to get the movie off the ground, but funding wasn’t secured until after Weisz expressed interest. I suppose it’s only fitting that the person who made it possible for the movie to be made is also the only reason to see the movie. Weisz is practically the whole show here, turning in a performance that rivals her award-winning work in The Constant Gardener. I’m generally not the sort of person who thinks one performance can make a movie worth seeing, but I think that’s the case here. Just barely, mind you, but still.

THE VIDEO

The 2.35:1/1080p transfer--encoded with AVC onto a 50GB disc--is something of a victim of the filmmakers’ intentions, but it’s still a strong effort. Colors are desaturated, and grain is intentionally thick, which fits the story and setting very well. Taking the stylistics into consideration, detail is relatively strong, but it gets crushed and swallowed in some of the darkest scenes, where blacks can get very deep.

THE AUDIO

The only audio option is a DTS-HD Master Audio 5.1 track. The mix could stand a little more color and diversity (there’s not much difference in the aural character of the various locations), but it’s nothing to cry over. There’s a front-heavy quality to interiors, but most exteriors open up nicely. Dialogue sounds fine, and Michael Danna’s excellent score (which does what it can to patch up the storytelling) sounds great. The low end does a good job of fattening up the score and adding punch to the occasional gunshot. English SDH and Spanish subtitles are available.

THE EXTRAS

Kathy Bolkovac: The Real Whistleblower (6 minutes) offers interview snippets with Weisz, Kirwan, Kondracki, and Kathy Bolkovac. It’s far too short to be of any consequence.

FINAL THOUGHTS