Taxi to the Dark Side
Directed by Alex Gibney. US. 2007. R. 106 min.
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Given its subject matter, and its title, you'd expect Alex Gibney's "Taxi to the Dark Side" to be profoundly disturbing and shocking, and it is. But not always in the ways you'd expect. A meticulous examination of the Bush administration's embracing of torture as a weapon of choice in the war against terrorism by the director of "Enron: The Smartest Guys in the Room," "Taxi" is impressive enough to have taken the best documentary prize at the Tribeca Film Festival and to be a likely finalist for the documentary Oscar when the contenders are announced next week. Because torture is its raison d'être, it's a given that "Taxi" is difficult to take at times. There are pictures from Abu Ghraib too appalling for family newspapers, upsetting videos and unblinking photographs of men who died in U.S. custody. Yet what is most distressing about "Taxi" is not physical acts but psychological ones. What is really appalling is how readily torture was embraced by officials as an absolute necessity and how easy it was for soldiers to, in the words of one, "lose your moral bearings" and become a party to atrocity. For though the official line out of Washington is still "we do not torture," it's impossible to watch this film — and hear testimony not just from soldiers but also veteran FBI men and former Bush administration officials — without coming to understand that torture is exactly what we are engaged in. (Kenneth Turan, LA Times)
Click here to read A.O. Scott's review in the NY Times.