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Review: Bhutto

The story of an extraordinarily compelling leader — who just might have been behind the assassination of her brother.
By GERALD PEARY  |  December 15, 2010
3.0 3.0 Stars

 

This well-researched documentary from Duane Baughman and Johnny O'Hara gives viewers a useful history of Pakistan since it broke away from India in 1947, as well as the inside story of the Bhutto family, who, as perennial government leaders, have stood publicly for women's rights, democracy, and a moderate form of Islam in a country where fundamentalism and the conservative military fight to rule and where Al-Qaeda runs free. The filmmakers focus on Benazir Bhutto, from her liberating days as a late-1960s Harvard student (she's Joan Baez gorgeous) to her horrific 2007 assassination, when, at 54, she returned to Pakistan from exile to run for a third term as prime minister. The woman is an extraordinarily compelling figure, and the admiring filmmakers just stop short of creating a love-in, even as they admit that she was ineffectual in her first term as PM and mired in corruption in her second. And, yes, it's possible that she was behind the assassination of Murtaza Bhutto, her brother.

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  Topics: Reviews , Benazir Bhutto, Pakistan, documentary,  More more >
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