With the war that tore apart Yugoslavia in the 1990's as the backdrop for this courtroom drama, Storm is the latest offering by co-writer and director Hans-Christian Schmid.  Unfortunately this is one storm that doesn't bring much intensity.

     Kerry Fox (Bright Star) is Hannah Maynard, a prosecutor for The Hague's tribunal for war crimes in the former Yugoslavia who is given the case of a Serbian commander accused of killing innocent Bosnians.  When her newly minted boss, played by Stephen Dillane (John Adams) hands her over the case's star witness, things get a little dicey.  First off, Hannah feels passed over for the position she believes she was equally qualified for, second, the witness could very well be lying which could collapse the whole case.  She must find her eye-witness' (Croatian actor Kresimir Mikic) estranged sister in order to corraborate his story or risk the very likely possibility of taking the fall.

     This is where the acting in Storm kicks in, or I should say when Anamaria Marinca's (4 months, 3 weeks, 2 days) character is introduced.  As Mira, the witness' sister, she's forged a good life for herself in Germany with a husband and son and doesn't want to dig up old wounds.  It's up to Ms. Maynard to convince Mira to come forward withany evidence she have to serve justice.  It's here that Maynard comes off as either naive or idealogical.  The former commander and the world he is from is far reaching in real estate, media, manufacturing,and maybe the Bosnian government.  The are considered white collar mobsters to some and national heroes to others.  Suffice it to say that they don't play around.  Mira knows what they're up against.  Marinca and Fox play off each other well, both conveying a wide range of emotions.  With that said, the female leads of Storm are well written and nuanced.  However, their male counterparts seem wooden, none more so than Mira's German husband (Steven Scharf).  

     Overall, Storm falls short.  What could have been a tense, emotional thriller instead is mediocre.  That's too bad because the material is there for a very intriguing story and the the two leads deliver very good performances.  The story doesn't sizzle, it fizzles.