Path of Blood

For 90 random and often bloody minutes, we're dunked into the raw life of Al Qaeda. A little of this can go a long way, yet "Path of Blood" does have a verité "thriller" element.

An archival documentary with the pounding, intimate heart of a Michael Mann thriller...

As eye-opening as it is disturbing, with little in the way of commentary, it's a patchwork of raw, brutal images that weave a chilling narrative of youthful naivety and adventure being warped into death and destruction.

Regardless of your politics, this is a film that cannot fail to move your sense of humanity. It is hair-raising.

It commands attention as an object lesson in the banality of evil.

Over-objectivity robs the film of any sense of narrative or purpose.

...provides an incredible insight into the mindset of Islamic terror groups.

Terrorists exist, now, and we're still trying to understand their motives. Path of Blood peels back the black masks and gives us a visceral and frightful look.

This is frequently a difficult film to watch, but it remains an essential historical document, with something to say about the banality of evil and the way naïve young men are radicalised.

All in all, though, it's a film that shows too much - shots of dead bodies - and says too little.

The most fascinating and compromised film of the year.

Although some of its structural manipulations seem a little dubious, this even-handed documentary remains a chilling examination of contemporary terror networks.