Movie review Taxi to the Dark Side
April 7th, 2008, 4:43 am Hobbies And Interests
Sometimes the truth hurts. Sometimes it’s excruciating. Alex Gibney, who made compelling drama of the most heinous corporate debacle before the subprime meltdown in “Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room,” now turns to U.S. interrogation practices in the Mideast and Guantanamo. His nonfiction film “Taxi to the Dark Side” is a searing critique of the dangers of unmonitored power in the hands of a few individuals, be they at the bottom of the command chain or the top.The film begins on an arid road in Afghanistan where Dilawar, a rural taxi driver, was swept up in a search for terrorists. Gibney presents evidence that this is commonplace.Dilawar was clearly innocent of any dangerous activities, but he protested his imprisonment at Bagram Air Base vigorously. To shut him up, his guards pummeled his legs with knee strikes and batons. The military physician attending Dilawar’s subsequent death ruled it a homicide, noting that his legs were so thoroughly “pulpified” they might have been “run over by a truck.”While Gibney clearly has in this Oscar-nominated documentary is a point of view - cool, righteous anger - he is a fair-minded reporter, giving the legal architects of these policies screen time to rebut criticism and explain their goals.
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