You know the video: dressed in an orange jumpsuit, shaven- headed, kneeling and bound, the American photojournalist James Foley reads from ludicrous script listing American crimes before a masked man – an Isis terrorist with a British accent – beheads the 40-year-old journalist.

The footage pointedly does not appear in this portrait of Foley by his childhood friend Brian Oakes. Oakes knew Foley since he was seven, a relationship that makes for powerful moments of intimacy. When Jim’s brother Michael talks about Jim’s last “statement”, he speaks directly to the filmmaker behind the camera: “You know him as well as I do. He would never have done those things if there wasn’t someone else who would be harmed. He never cared for himself.”

Jim: The James Foley Story – a documentary lately nominated for an Emmy – tries not to dwell on the end, insisting instead that we get to know its tragic subject for something more than decapitation.

In this spirit, the film surveys fellow frontline reporters and members of Foley’s large Catholic family. Friends recall a good-looking chap possessing “a jawline you could cut cheese with”. His colleagues recount the heady period when – weighing against the dwindling resources of traditional media – daredevil freelance reporters head to danger zones. Archive footage sees Foley talking about his experiences in Libya – where, in 2011, he was detained by pro-Gadafy forces for 44 days – almost as if he’s describing an extreme sport mishap.

Despite what he calls the “siren call” of the frontline, he is not a frivolous fellow. Following his trip to Aleppo’s Dar al-Shifa field hospital, he started a campaign to raise money for an ambulance. Surviving European photojournalists with whom Foley shared a Syrian cell for 18 months recall him as the guy nobody argued with, even during the tense games of Risk they played on an improvised board.

DOP Clair Popkin cleverly shrouds these former inmates in shadow, a jolting contrast with the brightness of Foley’s New England home.

Moments of sentiment – Sting sings the ballad The Empty Chair over the closing credits – never swamp the central tragedy. The fact remains that the Europeans who were detained with Foley had ransoms paid and went home; he did not. The family has subsequently founded the James Foley Foundation, partly to encourage news organisations to take responsibility for their freelance reporters. But there are no happy endings here.