Susan Granger’s review of “The Whistleblower” (Samuel Goldwyn Films)
Inspired by actual events, this political thriller is the true story of a United Nations peacekeeper who discovers friends and colleagues are involved in sex-trafficking in post-war Bosnia and Herzegovina.
The tale beings in 1999, when Lincoln, Nebraska cop/single mother Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) is struggling to make enough money to keep in touch with her teenage daughter who has moved to another state with her father. Lured by the promise of $100,000 (tax-free) for six-month tour of duty, she takes a job with Democra Security, a private contractor that hires US police officers and dispatches them around the world.
She proves so adept that she’s recruited to run the UN’s Women’s Rights and Gender Office, which investigates international sexual assault, domestic abuse and sex trafficking. Extending her stint, Bolkovac discovers two Ukranian girls who were duped into travelling to Bosnia, ostensibly to work in a Swiss hotel, but subsequently snatched and forced into working in a brothel. One terrified teen (Roxana Condurache) agrees to testify against her kidnappers and the dishonest UN workers who have abused her and are complicit to the criminal atrocities. But she’s abducted again and killed, leaving indignant Bolkovac to build documented evidence of wide-spread corruption against her fellow employees.
While she has the support of Human Rights Commission diplomat Madeleine Rees (Vanessa Redgrave) and an Internal Affairs agent (David Strathairn), her crusading investigation of the male-dominated US State Dept. cover-up is blocked by Democra and sneering UN officials, who continue to treat women as second-class citizens.
First-time feature director Larysa Kondracki, who co-wrote the extensively researched script with Ellis Kirwan, doesn’t flinch from brutal authenticity, and Rachel Weisz is absolutely believable as Bolkovac. Some scenes are over-written, lacking proper pacing, but the result is gritty, menacing realism.
As for the ‘real’ Kathy Bolkovac, she now lives in the Netherlands with her husband, a UN investigator she met in Bosnia.
On the Granger Movie Gauge of 1 to 10, “The Whistleblower” is a tension-filled 7 – in the same genre as “Erin Brockovich,” “Silkwood” and “Norma Rae.”
