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Canberra Today 14°/16° | Friday, March 29, 2024 | Digital Edition | Crossword & Sudoku

The Whistleblower (MA) ★ ★ ★ ½

CANADIAN film maker Larysa Kondracki’s based her confronting feature debut on American cop Kathryn Bolkovac’s book recounting her experiences as a UN peacekeeper in Bosnia.

A gritty sere story, filmed with matching images, develops slowly as Kathryn (Rachel Weiss) uncovers an organised racket selling girls in their early teens. The bad guys include UN employees confident in their protected status. The good guys, short of resources and reliable intelligence, have to do their jobs by the book.

The combination of ready-at-hand, low-priced sexual comforts and rake-offs from the pimps and traffickers forms a potent barrier against staff seeking to make a difference for the better.

Kathryn discovers that her job wallows in a slough of racial prejudice and economic blight among colleagues doing well from corruption. Using rigorous methodology and professional standards, she develops a case involving two young women only to learn that the prosecution files she worked so hard to create have been closed.

The main thrust of the plot is about getting them to the attention of somebody with enough clout to make people at the top listen. Even the BBC seems doubtful about her.

Bolkovac’s book is unrestrained in telling a distasteful story. Kondracki wears her heart on her sleeve, telling us: “You don’t have to love what my film says, but please take it seriously.”

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Dougal Macdonald

Dougal Macdonald

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