Review of Taxi to the Dark Side (2008) by Jeff D — 16 Jun 2009
It's been a long time since a film made me this enraged, this sick to my stomach, this horrified, but Taxi to the Dark Side did all that, leaving me drained and a little ashamed of some of our leaders.
Beginning with the story of an unjustly imprisoned Afghan taxi driver who was killed while in American custody, Taxi expands to take a long, unflinching look at both the wave of prisoner abuse in military prisons and the issue of torture (I refuse to use the euphemism "enhanced interrogation techniques").
The result is, to put it mildly, a difficult watch; Gibney spares the viewer nothing in his tale of the effect of abuse, from the psychological to the physical, and I can't say that some of the images and words will leave me easily.
More chilling (and infuriating) is the tracing of the origins of such techniques all the way up the command chain; there's little there I wasn't aware of, but seeing morality and American ideals cast aside so easily, no matter how noble the intentions, is a sickening thing that filled me with rage.
Taxi to the Dark Side isn't an easy watch, but it's an important one, and one that I wish I could force anyone who tries to justify torture or who whines about "human rights activists" to watch.
This review of Taxi to the Dark Side (2008) was written by Jeff D on 16 Jun 2009.
Taxi to the Dark Side has generally received very positive reviews.
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