Jim: The James Foley Story (2016) online

We all know the image. It’s when many of us first heard the acronym ISIS. It’s a still of a man in an orange jumpsuit with his executioner standing behind him in the desert. The man is James Foley, a conflict journalist who was kidnapped in Syria and beheaded in 2014, the video of that horrible act travelling the world as a pronouncement of a new international threat. Brian Oakes’ “Jim: The James Foley Story,” an Audience Award winner at this year’s Sundance Film Festival, premiering on HBO this Saturday, February 6th, reclaims that image. It turns it into more than a tool of terrorism, fully capturing the life of a man who knew he was at risk every time he went out on a job. Directed by an old family friend, “Jim” is a moving portrait of courage, but it is most of all a concerted effort to take back the life of James Foley.