Reviewed by Neil Davey
Stars Brian Keith Allen, Moazzam Begg, Willie Brand,
George W Bush, Jack Cloonan, Thomas Curtis,
Dick Cheney, Damien Corsetti, Greg D'Agostino
Written by Alex Gibney
Certification UK 15 | US R
Runtime 106 minutes
Directed by Alex Gibney
This winner of this year's documentary Oscar, Taxi To The Dark Side is Alex Gibney's hugely powerful response to the “war on terror”. It's thorough, efficient, incredibly sharp. And, of course, the people who need to see it, the brain dead masses happily slurping down the reports they're spoonfed, will stay away in droves.
Of course, it's not Gibney's fault that he's preaching to the converted. It's society's and there's bugger all he can do about it. All he can do is make bloody good films that attempt to publicise the US's ongoing infringements of human rights. And he has. The main subject is Dilawar, a young Afghan taxi driver who, back in 2002, was arrested on suspicion of terrorism and thrown into the US jail at Bagram. His incarceration — which followed no trial, of course — lasted five days ... which would be bad enough for any innocent man. However, his incarceration only ended because he was dead, apparently as a result of the interrogation techniques applied. Well, the Bush administration calls it “interrogation”: the coroner investigating the death called it “homicide”.
From here, Gibney traces other similar outrages at Bagram, Abu Ghraib and Guantanamo Bay, talking to some of the servicemen “responsible” . Of course, the official version is that these personnel — several of whom were court-martialled — were to blame. The personnel, however, have a different version of events and were following orders. And yes, you can question the morality of anyone who merely kowtows to such pressure but you also, surely, have to look at the problem as a whole? The buck, basically, stopped with these men. Gibney reasons, and pretty much proves, the buck should actually stop several stages higher on the chain of command.
While Gibney doesn't remain complettely even-handed, it's hard to see how he could and at least he doesn't resort to lazy Michael Moore-esque soundbites. This is an issue that doesn't need soundbites or the door-steppoing of an 80-something Alzheimer's victim to make its points. Gibney lets the damning facts speak for themselves. The US is using semantics to prevent having to face charges of war crimes and Gibney's unflinching film states the case against in mostly rational and always unflinching terms. Now, if we could just make the people who don't give a monkey's watch it, perhaps we'd be getting somewhere...