The Whistleblower, Larysa Kondracki, 2010, USA.

Reviewed by John Starr. Viewed at the Santa Barbara Film Festival 2011.

Directed by Larysa Kondracki, The Whistleblower is a dark drama about human trafficking of young women through Eastern Europe.  In the movie Rachel Weisz plays Kathryn Bolkovac, a cop from Nebraska that is struggling to find time for her daughter. Already divorced Kathryn is dealing with the reality of her husband moving to a another state and taking their daughter with him. Unable to transfer out of state Kathryn decides to take a job as a peacekeeper in Bosnia in order to make some good money and be able to stay in contact with her daughter.

The story is about the human trafficking scandal that police officer Kathryn Bolkovac uncovers while doing peacekeeping work while in Bosnia. Kathryn realizes that most of her male colleagues are involved in the scandal and that the issue is larger then she could have imagined. Kathryn quickly finds her self in over her head but unwilling to give up on   the girls that have been forced into slavery.

Watching the movie I felt an over whelming sense of frustration, watching Kathryn try her hardest to rescue these poor girls only to find every one around her working against her. Her fellow peacekeepers, superiors, members of the UN and local authorities are all trying to keep the scandal under wraps. The whole time I was waiting for the marines to start kicking down doors and shooting all the bad guys but they never come.

The story was even harder to stomach once I found out that it was based apone actual events. This movie is very dark and very raw. There are some scenes of the young girls being abused that are hard to watch. The scenes are shot almost all during the night and the only day shots are of the cold gloomy Bosnian landscape.