A terrific story powerfully told

In an age when many people give huge credence to patently fake news, outrageous conspiracy theories, and social media memes purporting universal truths, what is the role of perhaps the last great stalwart of what H.L. Mencken once referred to as "the life of kings" – the investigative journalist? The Fourth Estate has taken a pounding in recent years, and one wonders what Edward R. Murrow would have made of it all, but one thing of which we can be certain is that he would have respected the hell out of Sunday Times war correspondent Marie Colvin, the ostensible subject of writer/director Christopher Martin's excellent documentary, Under the Wire. Based on Under the Wire: Marie Colvin's Final Assignment by Colvin's photographer, Paul Conroy, who is also the primary interviewee in the film, the documentary covers the assignment on which Colvin was killed – the February 2012 military offensive during the Siege of Homs in Syria. Featuring a mixture of talking-head interviews and footage shot on-the-ground, with a small amount of interspersed reconstruction, the documentary is a more personalised version of the types of news story we see on a regular basis – "a journalist was killed today in…" However, whilst thematically, the film is about both Colvin's indefatigable spirit and Conroy's deep respect for her, it's structured more like a thriller, complete with plot twists, heroism, sacrifice, and success against-the-odds.

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