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| Taxi To the Dark Side | 
 enlarge | Actors: Alex Gibney, Alberto Mora, John Yoo, Scott Horton, Alfred Mccoy
Studio: Velocity / Thinkfilm
Category: DVD
List Price: $27.98
Buy New: $19.99
You Save: $7.99 (29%)
Avg. Customer Rating:  (5 reviews)
Sales Rank: 5843
Format: Ac-3, Color, Dolby, Dvd-video, Widescreen, Ntsc
Language: English (Original Language)
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD
Running Time: 106 minutes
Number Of Items: 1
UPC: 014381494020
EAN: 0014381494020
ASIN: B001BEK8FQ
Release Date: September 30, 2008 (In 40 Days)
Theatrical Release Date: 2007
Shipping: Eligible for Super Saver Shipping
Availability: Not yet released
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| Editorial Reviews:
Amazon.com
Among the slew of documentaries inspired by the post-9/11 war, arguably none is more important than Alex Gibney's Taxi to the Dark Side. The story it has to tell, with compelling thoroughness and no recourse to rhetoric, should be as disturbing to Americans supporting the war as it is to opponents. In December 2002, Dilawar, a young rural Afghan cabdriver, was accused of helping to plan a rocket attack on a U.S. base, clamped into prison at Bagram, and subjected to physical torture so relentless that he died after two days of it. But Dilawar was innocent--and he'd been denounced by the real culprit, who thereby took the heat off himself and won points with U.S. forces by giving them "a bad guy." Dilawar was the first fatal victim of Vice President Dick Cheney's devotion to "working the dark side"--torturing, humiliating, and otherwise abusing prisoners in the "Global War on Terror." His story, developed in horrific detail with testimony from the soldiers who tortured him, and also from two New York Times investigative reporters, becomes a prism for slanting light onto the "dark side" policy and the mindset behind it. The program at Bagram was deemed such a success that it served as the model for Abu Graibh the following year in Iraq, and both prisons became pipelines to the detainee facility at Guantanamo, Cuba. The film's impact is powerful and complex. We come to see the very soldiers who broke Dilawar's body and spirit as victims, too--and patsies of a policy that, from Cheney and Attorney General Alberto Gonzales on down, ignored the Geneva Convention and shrouded itself (and commanding officers) in "a fog of ambiguity" while the grunts took the fall. A lot of these grunts testify here, and the accumulation of their individual perspectives on a shared tragedy is devastating. The latter half of the film features penetrating commentary from critics of torture as a policy (Senator John McCain was still one at the time), all of whom agree that it doesn't work and it only damages us. And for Theatre of the Absurd, there's a PR tour of (a discrete portion of) the Guantanamo facility, which turns out to be kinda like summer camp: "They get ice cream on Sundays." Finally, Taxi to the Dark Side isn't about torture or politics or the justness or unjustness of the war in Afghanistan and Iraq. Gibney is entirely correct when he says, "It's really about the American character and whether we have become something rather different from what we imagine ourselves to be." He's asking; he doesn't want it to be true. --Richard T. Jameson
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| Customer Reviews:
 Difficult to Watch, Important Polemical Documentary Critical of Torture Used by American Soliders June 29, 2008
6 out of 6 found this review helpful
Having seen "Taxi to the Dark Side" nearly three weeks ago at a private screening in midtown Manhattan, my mind is still reeling from the harsh, brutal images of torture committed by United States soldiers against suspected terrorists and irregulars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This may be the most important documentary film on the "War on Terror", and while it is a liberal polemic film, it does an effective job of arguing its case by showing its graphic images, instead of having someone like filmmaker Michael Moore seen onscreen ranting and raving. The central saga which runs through the nearly two-hour long film is the last taxi ride of a young Afghan taxi driver, Dilawar, an innocent bystander who was picked up by American troops, tortured, and died from his severe injuries at the American detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan.
"Taxi to the Dark Side" deserves the ample recognition it has earned, and may be remembered as a superb documentary film in the tradition of Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame". But it isn't perfect for the following reasons. First it accepts as gospel truth, the fact that most of those being held by American soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba are as innocent as Dilawar was. Second it lacks more insightful analysis from the likes of noted military defense attorney Eugene Fidell, who represented my cousin, former U. S. Army chaplain James Yee (Much to my amazement, Yee's filmed testimony was not included at all in the final cut of this film.). Will "Taxi to the Dark Side" change the opinions of many? Hopefully it will force those who've seen it to ask serious, probing questions about inhumane treatment of prisoners by some American soldiers, and perhaps persuade them to convince the Federal political leadership in Washington, D. C. to act more aggressively to avert similar instances of prisoner mistreatment in the future.
Difficult to Watch, Important Polemical Documentary Critical of Torture Used by American Soldiers June 29, 2008
5 out of 5 found this review helpful
Having seen "Taxi to the Dark Side" nearly three weeks ago at a private screening in midtown Manhattan, my mind is still reeling from the harsh, brutal images of torture committed by United States soldiers against suspected terrorists and irregulars in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay, Cuba. This may be the most important documentary film on the "War on Terror", and while it is a liberal polemic film, it does an effective job of arguing its case by showing its graphic images, instead of having someone like filmmaker Michael Moore seen onscreen ranting and raving. The central saga which runs through the nearly two-hour long film is the last taxi ride of a young Afghan taxi driver, Dilawar, an innocent bystander who was picked up by American troops, tortured, and died from his severe injuries at the American detention center in Bagram, Afghanistan.
"Taxi to the Dark Side" deserves the ample recognition it has earned, and may be remembered as a superb documentary film in the tradition of Edward R. Murrow's "Harvest of Shame". But it isn't perfect for the following reasons. First it accepts as gospel truth, the fact that most of those being held by American soldiers in Afghanistan, Iraq and Cuba are as innocent as Dilawar was. Second it lacks more insightful analysis from the likes of noted military defense attorney Eugene Fidell, who represented my cousin, former U. S. Army chaplain James Yee (Much to my amazement, Yee's filmed testimony was not included at all in the final cut of this film.). Will "Taxi to the Dark Side" change the opinions of many? Hopefully it will force those who've seen it to ask serious, probing questions about inhumane treatment of prisoners by some American soldiers, and perhaps persuade them to convince the Federal political leadership in Washington, D. C. to act more aggressively to avert similar instances of prisoner mistreatment in the future.
 Ultimately, Taxi doesn't work March 30, 2008
8 out of 13 found this review helpful
The problem with "Taxi To The Dark Side" is that it ultimately condones torture(interrogation techniques), so long as it's by the book and that which is not traditionally seen as torture - before Bush. That of course is not its intended effect. But when it spends a good deal of time on the difference between physical torture and psychological torture, to what end, the viewer can't be sure, it basically diffuses the issue - torture is torture. As one of the "Winter Soldiers," a young guard at Abu Ghraib, said in his recent testimony (viewed on Alternet), "If being confined in a suffocating cell 24/7 isn't torture, I don't know what is." Additionally, "Taxi" spins its wheels addressing the irrelevant argument that torture "doesn't work." Does that mean if we could count on it "working" it would be acceptable? To even consider that is torturous logic.
Outstanding Documentary About The Methods Of Torture Being Used By The U.S. Military March 22, 2008
11 out of 11 found this review helpful
With this extraordinary film director Alex Gibney makes a convincing and well researched case against the acts of torture, abuse and humiliation committed by the U.S. military against political prisoners in Iraq, Afghanistan and Guantanamo Bay.
A major sub-plot is the story of Dilawar, an Afghan taxi driver who ended up dying from injuries suffered while he was held in Bagram, a former Soviet prison coverted into a U.S. detention center for suspected terroists. However, the film explains how Dilawar was actually an innocent man turned in by an actual terroist seeking to throw investigators off his trail. One expert explains how only about 1% of the detainees are actual terroists and that the vast majority were not even arrested by the U.S. military. But rather were turned in by Pakastani and Afghani bounty hunters seeking financial compensation.
The numerous forms of abuse inflicted on these foreign detainees is depicted in gruesome detail. The methods of torture included not only water boarding but various means of sexual humiliation such as having women's panties placed on their heads, forced masturbation and female military officers caressing them while whispering "your mother is a whore" into their ears. The ultimate goal was inflicting a complete mental, physical and emotional breakdown on the prisoners. Other tactics used were sleep depravation achieved by handcuffing detainees to the ceiling for days at a time and the sort of brutal physical assaults that led to the death of the innocent Dilawar.
Of course, it was the low ranking soldiers who ended up facing punishment when these acts of illegal abuse were discovered. But the film makes it very clear that they were simply following orders handed down from the highest levels of the Bush administration. Particularly at fault were chicken hawks Cheney and Rumsfield. In fact, it was Cheney himself who gave this doc its title when he referred to how the U.S. must go over to the "dark side" in its military and intelligence methods.
The film concludes with a powerful statement from the director's father Frank Gibney. He describes how, as an military interrogator in World War II and the Korean War, he and other officers were required to follow a strict code of conduct that respected the human rights of prisoners. But with this new "dark side' policy the U.S. miltary is instead following the tactics of the Communists, Fascists and even the Spanish Inquistion. They are not only ignoring the rules laid down by the Geneva Convention, but even the U.S. Constitution itself - which guarantees all prisoners the right to counsel and a speedy trial. These "dark side" tactics are not those of the United States of America that I love and believe in. Instead they are those of politicians lacking a moral compass which all Americans of conscience, liberal and conservative, should be ashamed of.
I have to get my hands on a copy of this: February 27, 2008
15 out of 22 found this review helpful
THIS IS A MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY!!!!
I'M CURRENTLY LISTENING TO AN INTERVIEW ON ALEX JONES'S WEB RADIO BROADCAST FROM AUSTIN TEXAS ON THIS MOVIE AND i HAVE TO GO SEE IT BECAUSE THEY ARE DISCUSSING ABOUT HOW BUSH AND HIS ADMINISTRATION IS ATTEMPTING TO CREATE SECRET TRIBUNAL COURTS WHERE THEY WENT OVER TO IRAQ AND JUST PICKED PEOPLE UP THAT WEREN'T GUILTY OF ANYTHING AND ACCUSED THEM AND CHARGED THEM OF CRIMES THAT THEY NEVER COMMITTED AND THEY WANT TO TRY AND CONVICT THEM AFTER THEY SENT THEM TO GUANTANIMO BAY CUBA AND TORTURED THEM AS IF THEY WERE JUST THE LOWEST FORM OF SCUM ON THE EARTH.
THIS IS A MUST SEE DOCUMENTARY!!!!
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