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Jonathan Millet\u2019s Ghost Trail <\/i>played at the Cannes Film Festival a\u00a0full year before Jafar Panahi\u2019s Palme d\u2019Or-winning It Was Just an Accident<\/i>, which is worth noting in that both films have strikingly similar set-ups regarding the moral and ethical pretexts of bringing war criminals to justice. Hamid (Adam Bessa) shiftily walks up to a\u00a0park bench in a\u00a0playground and sits down next to Nina (Julia Franz Richter). They look like they\u2019re from different worlds, but as she wanders off, he grabs an attach\u00e9 case she leaves on the floor and scarpers. He is a\u00a0Syrian refugee, inducted into a\u00a0covert crew looking to track down and expose similarly displaced countrypersons who may now be trying to distance themselves from the Assad r\u00e9gime.<\/p>\n
Unlike those perpetrators of torture and violence, Hamid takes great pains (and risks) to make sure he has the right man, gradually building up a\u00a0dossier but constantly being forced to second guess his intel. Ghost Trail <\/i>is best when it\u2019s playing like a\u00a0pulpy spy movie, drawing on the encounters where the audience is party to information that the characters aren\u2019t. Indeed, the strongest scene comes when our man finally meets his charismatic mark over lunch (Tawfeek Barhom). It studiously documents the various ways that Hamid makes his case, even though there\u2019s never that much depth to the character beyond his cloak-and-dagger maschinations and a\u00a0pressing desire for justice.\u00a0<\/p>\n<\/div>\n