Scanialara You won't be disappointed!

Kien Navarro Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Mandeep Tyson The acting in this movie is really good.

Geraldine The story, direction, characters, and writing/dialogue is akin to taking a tranquilizer shot to the neck, but everything else was so well done.

Michael Kingsbury As a fellow Human Rights filmmaker, this film is accurately portrays this aspect of the former Marxist Eastern Europe sex slave trade. As a director, I'm proud of the film's director for fighting for the toughest final cut, I know it cuts down on marketability, to have such a real scene towards the end, but it is vital for the integrity and longevity of the film.My only criticism is that it doesn't show the influence of ex-Marxists (Communists) in the Ukraine starting point of the sex slave trade. I would have liked to have seen about 20 of the brutal rape and murder scenes all through the film, and not just as the shocking climax. But I'm more from the Tarkovsky school of total inescapable immersion in the subject.One of the top 20 films of the last 40 years.

lavatch The war in Bosnia and Herzegovina between from 1992-95 was one of the most horrific struggles since World War II. Bosnia-Herzegovina, Croatia, and Serbia were thrown together in a postwar settlement that necessitated intervention from United Nation peacekeeping forces. It also included special "global service" contractors like Democra that is depicted in "The Whistleblower" as full of corrupt and mercenary predators engaging in human trafficking.Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) is an honest cop from Lincoln, Nebraska, who volunteers for a stint in Bosnia to help with reconstruction, peacekeeping, and law enforcement and nation building in the late 1990s. The film depicts Kathryn's nightmare in attempting to rescue young women from the Ukraine who have been sold into bondage in Bosnia-Herzegovnia.Katryn faces an uphill battle, as nearly everyone from the cops to local authorities to international bureaucrats seem to be complicit in human trafficking. The most appalling dereliction of duty comes from the U.N. itself, as evident in the feckless character of Bill Hynes. It was only due to the tenacity of Kathryn Bolkovac that the case files were eventually shared with the press that the truth was known. Eventually, Kathryn published the book that was the basis for the film: "The Whistleblower: Sex Trafficking, Military Contractors and One Woman's Fight for Justice." The film is successful in portraying Kathryn's heroic struggle as the whistleblower. It also demonstrates how international agreements can experience a total breakdown. In 1995, the Dayton Peace Accords laid out the framework for the division of the former nation-state of Yugoslavia following the Bosnian War. A stipulation of the accords was for an international conglomeration of organizations to monitor and implement the peace agreements. But human greed intervened, leading to enormous atrocities. The film is unflinching in depicting those atrocities, and it reminds viewers at the end that "private contractors" are worth billions in revenues from clean-up work in Iraq and Afghanistan. Let us hope and pray that those contractors include more people like Kathryn Bolkovac.

NateWatchesCoolMovies The Whistleblower is a tough but necessary film to sit through. It concerns the UN back in 90's Serbia/Bosnia, a time and place characterized by extreme human savagery and unimaginable cruelty. Now during this brutal conflict, hundreds of young, displaced refugee girls were caught up in the chaos of it all and trapped in sex slavery, which was rampant at the time, creating another tragic blemish in history made worse by the fact that the UN knew well and good what was going on and did little to nothing to stop it. It's heartbreaking material no doubt, but there's a light in the darkness in the form of UN ambassador Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz) who can't stand by and watch the corruption continue, confronting her superiors which creates further friction. The thing is, in a time of such wanton crisis, a lot of elements in the equation get written off as collateral damage or acceptable losses tearfully tallied up in barely disguised apathy in service of some greater good. Kathryn's UN boss Bill Hynes (Liam Cunningham in a nice extended cameo) has this reprehensible, all too common outlook and won't do anything to help the imprisoned girls. For a lot of people in Ivory towers of detachment, the plight of less fortunate people may not seem like a cause to get riled up over. Not Kathryn. She won't stand for it, and launches a personal crusade to expose those in power who aid and allow the sex trade to survive, and bring them down. With help from two sympathetic colleagues (David Strathairn and Vanessa Redrave) she navigates the tricky, war torn personal and bureaucratic terrains to try and liberate girls who've barely begun life and have already found themselves in hell. Weisz has an innate compassion in any role we see her in, making her the perfect woman to play this character who risks all she has to save complete strangers from a horrific fate. It should be noted that there are intense scenes of violent sexual abuse here that are super tough to watch, but necessary to impart that importance of the girl's struggle to the audience. It's nice to see true stories about a single person who stands up for many others in the face of pure evil.. gives me hope for our upside down world. PS: watch for a brief cameo from Benedict Cumberbatch.

KFL So this was an infuriating film, as I had been warned in reviews. The main character makes little headway in exposing sex trafficking centered on a UK-based company that is charged with much of the UN activities in Bosnia--and elsewhere, such as Iraq and Afghanistan, I understand.And, actors such as Rachel Weisz, David Strathairn and Vanessa Redgrave--still beautiful and dignified in her 70's--do not disappoint.But, this film irritated me no end by arguing that a Nebraska police officer could go to Bosnia and, with no knowledge of any language other than English, make such earth-shaking changes. C'mon, people, this is absurd. Either she had interpreters with her, who shared her moments of terror and therefore deserve to be recognized as heroes as well, or else...what?? Body language sufficed??? People just somehow knew just enough English to get by, each and every time?????This is absurd, really. I assume the movie was made for the American market, and assumed that the viewer regards languages as a distraction. Given an earnest American get-it-done attitude, little things like understanding what other people are saying don't matter...right? Americans are used to traveling all over the world and having their English understood. That's true enough if they're tourists in major cities, brandishing American dollars; not so true in real-life situations in third-world countries, battle-riven countries, and in the rural areas of first-world countries.This movie does a disservice to Americans and others by suggesting that knowledge of foreign languages does not matter. It does.