Modern Hollywood’s War Heroes

Not exactly The Guns of Navarone:

The Guardian reports:

    George Clooney, already one of Hollywood’s leading liberal voices, has embarked on what may be one of his most controversial projects: the story of Osama bin Laden’s driver.  Clooney’s production company, Smokehouse, has bought the rights to a book about Salim Hamdan, an inmate at Guantánamo Bay who last week was sentenced to jail for his role in helping the al-Qaeda leader. The book, The Challenge, is by journalist Jonathan Mahler and tells the story of Hamdan’s capture and trial, defended by a US navy lawyer, Lieutenant Commander Charles Swift. It has had a big critical success.

    Last week Yemen-born Hamdan, who has already spent seven years in US custody, received a surprisingly light sentence of just five and a half years for being bin Laden’s driver in Afghanistan….

    Clooney is believed to be interested in playing the role of lawyer Swift and the case certainly has all the drama and tension of any fictional legal thriller. Aside from the terrorism and exotic locations, The Challenge describes Swift’s battle as a classic case of a crusading ‘little guy’ winning against the odds.