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The Whistleblower | 2011 | R | - 8.8.7

Based on the true story of Kathryn Bolkovac (Rachel Weisz), a Nebraskan police woman that took a contract position as a peacekeeper in Bosnia and shook up the United Nations when she uncovered a human trafficking ring and sex scandal. Also with Monica Bellucci, Vanessa Redgrave and David Strathairn. Directed by Larysa Kondracki. [1:52]

SEX/NUDITY 8 - Several teen girls and young women are forced to watch a young woman as it is implied that she's being forcibly penetrated with a pipe (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details); the victim is seen wearing a bra when a man pulls down her pants and underwear and her bare buttocks are briefly visible.
 A woman watches a video of a teenage girl labeled, "jail bait," we hear men instructing the teenage girl (she's wearing only a bra and underwear), to take off her bra and a man discusses that he had purchased the girl for sex. As a teenage girl narrates, suggesting that a man had forced her to have sex with him, we see a graphic photograph of a teenage girl lying face-down, naked from the waist down (her bare buttocks are visible) as several men surround the table.
 We see a woman examine a photograph of a woman that's fully nude (her bare breasts and genitals are visible) and appears to have been forced to pose for the suggestive photo. A woman discovers photographs of women in their underwear, tied up and posed in suggestive positions. A woman discovers a photograph of a man with his hand up a woman's skirt (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). On multiple occasions we see photographs of women in their underwear and in various sexual poses and suggestive positions. In a bar, teenage girls and young women are seen wearing low-cut cleavage exposing tops and skimpy outfits and a man asks how much it would be to purchase teenage girls for sex. We see a pinball machine with pictures of women wearing bikinis with their breasts and nipples covered by small stickers.
 We briefly see the shadowed outlines of a man and a woman kissing passionately and it is implied that they are undressing (no nudity is visible); it is also implied that they have sex and we later see the woman waking up in the man's bed. A man and a woman hug and kiss briefly. A man stands behind a woman with his arms around her and she jokingly asks if standing behind a woman will "get him laid."
 Throughout the movie a woman discusses that men are paying to have sex with teenage girls and young women who are victims of human trafficking (please see the Violence/Gore category for more details). An older woman explains that a young woman had been sexually violated with objects and coins, which were left inside her and led to a very serious infection. A woman makes a remark to a man that she had slept with him previously. A woman tells a man that she had seen pornographic photographs of men with women, who had been forced to have sex against their will and were being held in cages with chains; the man tells the woman that he had thought the men were having consensual sex. A man makes an advance toward a woman, and then asks her if she is dating another man. A man makes two inappropriate remarks to a woman about being attractive.

VIOLENCE/GORE 8 - A man shouts at a teenage girl and pulls her to her knees by her hair, he shouts at her and forces her to look at other teen girls and young women being carried and dragged into a room: two men take the first teenage girl and force her onto a table, pulling off her clothing forcefully, one man grabs her hair and punches her in the face, and we hear screams as it is implied that she is being tortured, including using a pipe to sexually violate her while the other teen girls and young women are forced to watch (we see the pipe as it hits the ground and it has a small amount of blood on the end).
 A man grabs a teenage girl by the hair, he holds a gun to her head while other teenage girls and young women watch, cry and scream, he pulls the trigger and we hear a gunshot (no blood is visible); we later see the teenage girl's body being found when a woman examines it while several men watch.
 We see images of women being dragged out of cars and shoved into buildings while a woman narrates how various people had been involved in human trafficking; we see the dead body of a teenage girl lying on the ground as the woman describes how teen girls and young women had been sold into slavery. A man leads roughly two teenage girls into a room filled with other teen girls that appear sick and are being held captive.
 A car purposefully hits a truck transporting a teenage girl, we see the driver of the car get out and drag the driver of the truck out and attack him, kicking and punching him in the face and stomach until he collapses on the ground (a small puddle of blood forms behind his head and he is later see fully recovered); the teen girl screams when the attacker gets in the truck and drives away with her.
 A woman screams at a man, she repeatedly shoves him in the chest, she pulls away and then lunges at him, screaming and she has to be dragged away by two other men. A woman lunges at another woman, screams at her and calls her names and she then punches and claws at the woman until a man comes into the room and drags them apart.
 A young woman is seen slumped over on a couch, and she has a black eye, a cut on her eyebrow and a cut on her cheek; she wakes up and quickly passes out again and a woman shouts that she is seriously ill and to get a medic. A young woman is seen with a cut over her eye, and she tells a woman that she and nine other young women had been attacked during a raid. A woman looks at photographs of two young women that had been beaten up; we see one with a cut on her eye, and the other with a cut on her cheek and a black eye. A woman discovers photographs of bound women with their arms held above their heads and behind their backs.
 We see a woman huddled in a corner with her eye is covered, and another woman reads a description of the woman's injuries, saying that she had been stabbed in the arm and her face was beaten; the woman removes bloody-soaked gauze from the woman's leg and a man tells the woman investigating that the injured woman had been beaten by her husband. A woman tells another woman that she had brought two young women to seek medical attention and we see the two young women, both with black eyes and one has a cut above her eye.
 We see two soldiers lifting a body bag. We see several women weeping as they stand around a body bag and body bags surround them on the ground. A man finds a child's shoe buried in the ground. A woman investigates an area that is implied to have been a holding room for women held captive; she finds chains and dirty mattresses on the ground and blood is visible on some of the chains.
 Police officers push young women out of a bar and a woman interrupts them asking why they are being arrested; one of the police officers says that he had been instructed to arrest the young women and we see a handcuffed man being led out of the building, shouting at the police officers escorting him. A man being arrested struggles with police officers that are handcuffing him and he looks angrily at a woman. A woman is lead out of a building by three men holding large guns.
 A woman watches a man as he detonates a landmine; we see the explosion and no one is harmed. We hear an explosion, a woman tells another woman that she thought the war was over, and the woman explains that the explosions heard were landmines being safely detonated. A teenage boy throws a burning bottle into a campfire, it crashes and we see the fire arch. We hear a crash of broken glass as a man throws a package into a moving truck and we hear a woman shouting at the man.
 A woman watches a television report about human trafficking when the male host warns that any person can be a human trafficker and a woman on the report cries, saying that she had been sold into human trafficking. A teenage girl runs, shouting at a woman that is chasing her; the girl tells the woman to "let her die" and they wrestle until they both collapse to their knees and the girl begins crying. A young woman cries and shouts and looks panicked while men interview her; the young woman tells the men that young women and teenage girls are being held captive in a bar. A man warns a woman that she could be killed, that her death would be covered up as an accident and that her death would not have to be reported. A woman listens to answering machine messages including one with a vague threat, and another has a person calling her a crude term. A man tells a woman she is trespassing in a building and he threatens her saying she no longer has diplomatic immunity. A woman asks another woman if the woman's husband still beats her and the woman ignores the question. Several men shout at one another, a woman interrupts them to discuss a criminal case where a woman had been beaten, and one man says that a woman had been beaten because of her religion, saying she had deserved to be beaten; the woman shouts that the woman's beating was a felony. A woman tells a young woman that she will not allow men to "rape, kidnap and torture" a group of young women. An older woman tells a man that an organization should not allow people to rape victims of human trafficking. A woman tells an older woman that she had uncovered an investigation, which showed that countless men were involved in a human trafficking ring, including bringing teenage girls illegally across borders to force them to have sex. A woman tells a man that another man is taking payoffs from bar raids involving women that are victims of human trafficking, and forced to have sex against their will. A young woman warns a woman that she does not feel safe talking about her experience with human trafficking. A man tells soldiers to investigate two stabbings, four injured people and a man who is injured and cannot remember his name. A woman tells another woman that a young woman's parents had been killed. A woman tells an older woman that a teenage girl had been killed. A man tells a woman that the police had dropped a teenage girl in the woods; he hints that he believes the teenage girl will not survive. An older woman tells another woman that a group of teenage girls and young women had been abducted and sold into human trafficking. A woman asks teenage girls and young women if they had been victims of human trafficking. A teenage girl asks a woman if another teenage girl has been found, and the woman tells the teenage girl that the other girl is injured and has not been found. A young woman asks a woman if her friend is safe from a police raid, and the woman tells the young woman that her friend had been taken back to a bar that had been raided. An older woman says that teenage girls and young women had been kidnapped for the sex trade. An older woman tells a woman that over half the men of a country had been killed during a war. Men and women drive through a war-torn area and a man remarks that there are bullet holes at eye level of buildings. A man tells a woman that another woman had been in a hospital over eight times because she had been beaten by her husband. A man says that women are beaten frequently and it is not investigated. A woman tells a man to investigate a woman's beating as a felony assault. During a court case, a man reads a statement that a man stabbing a woman should be viewed as a criminal case because it was felony assault. A man tells a woman that he had ordered a raid on a bar, and the woman responds that she had investigated the bar and saw padlocks and cages where women were held. A woman tells an older man and a woman that a teenage girl had been kidnapped. A teenage girl tells a woman that a group of men had come to a bar and taken money. A woman shouts at a man and shoves a basket in his hands. Women shout and crowd toward a man standing in front of a building, the man shouts back at them and tells another woman that the women had been forced out of their homes and were now trying to reenter them. A group of men shout at one another. A man asks a woman if she is experiencing burnout from a job. A man tells a woman that a group of prostitutes going to a "women's home" (implied to be prison) is "like a vacation" for them. A teenage girl tells another teenage girl that her "mother will kill her." A man tells guards that they are instructed to maintain order and peace. A teenage girl tells her mother that another woman "scares her"; the woman agrees, saying the other woman also scares her.
 A woman is upset when she discovers that her phone is tapped. A woman is startled when a man knocks on the window of her car.
 A man spits on the ground.

LANGUAGE 7 - About 24 F-words and its derivatives, 6 sexual references, 10 scatological terms, 1 anatomical term, 10 mild obscenities, name-calling (wimp, trouble, smurfs, devil, smart lady, dogs, dumb, stupid, swine), 9 religious exclamations.

SUBSTANCE USE - Men are seen drinking on multiple occasions, a woman buys a group of men a round of drinks at a bar, a woman jokes about drinking, a man asks a woman if she minds that he drinks, and teens are shown drinking beer at a party. A teen girl smokes a cigarette and men are seen smoking cigarettes on multiple occasions.

DISCUSSION TOPICS - Human trafficking, whistle blowing, kidnapping, Bosnia, international conflict, United Nations, war contracting, gender inequality, blackmail, bribery, implications of violence, revenge, wrongful dismissal of employees.

MESSAGE - Choosing to become a whistleblower can be a very difficult but it's also the right thing to do.

CAVEATS

Be aware that while we do our best to avoid spoilers it is impossible to disguise all details and some may reveal crucial plot elements.

We've gone through several editorial changes since we started covering films in 1992 and older reviews are not as complete & accurate as recent ones; we plan to revisit and correct older reviews as resources and time permits.

Our ratings and reviews are based on the theatrically-released versions of films; on video there are often Unrated, Special, Director's Cut or Extended versions, (usually accurately labelled but sometimes mislabeled) released that contain additional content, which we did not review.


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