The Whistleblower

Based on true events, The Whistleblower follows police officer turned peacekeeper Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) as she discovers a deadly sex trafficking ring while on a mission in Bosnia. Though it’s clear that filmmaker Larysa Kondracki has nothing but the best of intentions, The Whistleblower comes off as a preachy, hopelessly heavy-handed piece of work that often feels like a gritty spin on a Lifetime Network movie-of-the-week. The film’s pervasive lack of authenticity effectively quashes its few positive attributes, and, far more problematic, there’s little doubt that the movie’s frequently grisly instances of violence tend too come off as exploitative as a result. Weisz, despite her best efforts, is simply never able to convincingly become this woman, as the actress’ performance seems to boil down to a series of clips one might expect to see on Oscar night. Only David Strathairn, cast as a compassionate Internal Affairs agent, manages to infuse the proceedings with anything even resembling depth, but his screentime proves to be seriously (and lamentably) limited. The lack of subtlety within Kondracki and Eilis Kirwan’s screenplay only grows more problematic as time progresses, as the scripters ultimately rely on moustache-twirling villains and laughable instances of speechifying to make their points. Look, The Whistleblower is clearly attempting to shed light on an important subject matter – yet the pedestrian treatment of the subject matter does the material more of a disservice than anything else.

* out of ****