Taxi to the Dark Side

Like the Iraq war documentary No End in Sight, this movie about the U.S. military's systematic torture of terror suspects is a triumph not of reporting but of synthesis.

Certain to inspire both outrage and sorrow, Alex Gibney's harrowing documentary -- about the torture and abuse of suspected terrorists in U.S. military prisons -- ranks among recent cinema's more excoriating moral indictments.

Taxi to the Dark Side is a stunning indictment of torture as policy, a brilliant documentary whose arguments are so well-supported and reasonably made that you can't ignore them.

Along with No End in Sight, this movie is one of the essential documentaries of the ongoing war.

Taxi to the Dark Side joins a growing list of outspoken documentaries that question the rationale and conduct of America's presence in Iraq and Afghanistan, and our willingness to destroy freedom in order to save it.

The film certainly makes its case, tracing a chain of abuse from Bagram to the notorious Iraqi prison, Abu Ghraib, to the cells of Guantanamo.

Filmmaker Gibney, whose involvement with anti-establishment exposés could conceivably mark him for his own eventual rendition by the forces of freedom, carefully guides us up the chain of command to the policy level.

Consciously depressing, draining and damning. A dizzying, disorienting tone befits indictments against vulgarly abused power, and Gibney avoids judging soldiers already punished in accordance with a system of blame shamefully traveling down, never up.

A shocking expose about the American military's use of torture to get confessions--not always truthful ones--from prisoners suspected of terrorism. This is the kind of film that can make a difference!

[An] assiduously investigated, brilliantly argued documentary.

Nails the fact that murder, injuries, sexual abuse, humiliation and degradation of prisoners was covered up and condoned at the highest levels of the Bush Administration.

A comprehensive movie, an everything-you-wanted-to-know-but-were-afraid-to-ask film, engaging, paced well, informative, and professionally polished.