ChicDragon It's a mild crowd pleaser for people who are exhausted by blockbusters.

Quiet Muffin This movie tries so hard to be funny, yet it falls flat every time. Just another example of recycled ideas repackaged with women in an attempt to appeal to a certain audience.

Brenda The plot isn't so bad, but the pace of storytelling is too slow which makes people bored. Certain moments are so obvious and unnecessary for the main plot. I would've fast-forwarded those moments if it was an online streaming. The ending looks like implying a sequel, not sure if this movie will get one

Phillipa Strong acting helps the film overcome an uncertain premise and create characters that hold our attention absolutely.

proterozoic A bomb went off, and we looked away. The medieval tableaux of Abu Ghraib did manage to shock us for a while. Then, some people were punished, and we convinced ourselves that was all of them.According to the Global Views survey, in 2010, 42 percent of Americans were in favor of "using torture to extract information from suspected terrorists." This is 6 points higher than in 2008; 12 points higher than in 2004. Could this become a majority soon? Are these people who have seen and remember those photographs? Have they reconciled themselves to such scenes? Could I? "Taxi to the Dark Side" is an exceptionally meticulous documentary that takes the case of an Afghan taxi driver who was beaten to death by interrogators at Bagram base in 2006, and puts it in the context of American anti-terror policy. It shows young soldiers with no training in interrogation, given vague instructions and strong expectations of results - and when the story goes public, they are hung out to dry. One interview, one document at a time, the fog of legal and moral ambiguity is dispelled, until televised denials by administration officials shrink to nothing next to a stark red pillar of human suffering.Maybe our culture won't let us believe that the good guys can do such things to innocent people. The detective throws down his badge and solves the case outside the system. He hits a man in the face; he gets a name. He pistol-whips another man; the man is reluctant, and he gets shot in the leg. A bartender gets dunked into dishwater. He almost dies, but gives up his contact.There was ambiguity in movies like The French Connection, but at some point, the detective stopped ever being wrong. This documentary makes a compelling suggestion that popular entertainment has helped spread the idea of justified and reliable torture.Taxi to the Dark Side won the Oscar for best documentary, and nobody saw it. It barely made a quarter of its budget. That's really too bad. It's a good idea for citizens to see it, then think about whether they believe that everything's OK.

njmollo There is ample evidence of torture at Guantanamo, Abu Ghirab and Bargam Airforce Base. This is undisputed. It embarrassed the Bush administration when evidence of their secret was finally leaked to the public in the form of photographs. Would it have been better if these photographs of American soldiers committing torture had never come to light? This documentary is substantiated with facts. Yet some still find the truth too much to bear. On IMDb a "reviewer" wrote:"Stupid biased Anti-American and unbalanced.... Those who hate the USA, Israel and are sympathisers with the Taliban, and Muslim extremists will love this film."So to document American "War Crimes" is anti-American? Can this opinion really be held? Another "reviewer" wrote:"Where were the American suicide bombers - did I miss them? I was also waiting to see how the evil Americans use suicide bombers to kill innocent men, women and children in markets, on buses, in schools, and any and every other public place. Oh wait, silly me. Americans don't use suicide bombers."In fact, there is documented evidence that British SAS working for British Intelligence, dressed in local Arab clothing, tried to explode a car bomb in Basra in 2005. (BBC) The British Government apologised to Iraq over the incident. Also in 2005, American Soldiers disguised in Arab dress were captured in the act of setting off a car bomb in a Bagdad residential area. (Mirror World). I am sure these "soldiers" had no intention of killing themselves in the blasts but the objective is clear, cause chaos and bloodshed then blame your enemy.Another "reviewer" that states he served in Iraq had this to say: "It's War The liberals will have you believe that America is and always will be the cause of so much unrest in the world today. We aren't. Rogue nuclear nations and terrorists without borders are as much to blame. I am sure some detainees at Guantanamo were in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and I am sure that some were members of Al Queda. Again, consider the events of 9/11 and consider how difficult it is for the foot soldier to identify friends and foes in the "fog of war." Let them do their jobs as best as they can, or else there may be another 9/11."He continues:"The documentary ignored the yield of interrogations. Did they save American lives on the battlefield or at home? Did they make a difference? I personally served in Iraq and I consider myself well-versed in modern media trickery. Had the documentary given any attention to what resulted on the battlefield from any intelligence obtained, then HBO's anti-war meaning would have been lost."So America is not "the cause of so much unrest in the world today?" Then who is?With the preemptive and some would say illegal invasions of Afghanistan and Iraq, millions have died, mostly civilians and as a result, the credibility of America has suffered considerably. With the American use of torture, the Bush administration legitimised "rogue" states to use the same methods with impunity. What is made clear in this documentary is that torture almost assures that prisoners once released will seek revenge. What effect carpet bombing, phosphorous bombs, daisy-cutters, napalm and tons of incendiary bombs will have on recruiting more terrorists is uncertain. "I am sure some detainees at Guantanamo were in the "wrong place at the wrong time" and I am sure that some were members of Al Queda." So that is 50/50? Half are terrorists and half are not. Not really a sure thing is it? This equates to gamble rather than a concerted effort to find real suspects. Brigadier Roger Lane, Commander of British forces in Afghanistan stated that his troops had yet to find, capture or kill one member of Al Qaeda. "We haven't captured any Al Qaeda. We haven't killed any." he said to the BBC. Top US commander in Afghanistan General Stanley McChrystal said that he sees no indication of any large Al Qaeda presence in Afghanistan. So the existence of this "phantom enemy" popularised as Al Queda is itself in question."Let them (the Soldiers..) do their jobs as best as they can, or else there may be another 9/11." So, soldiers should be "unhindered" by media scrutiny because it will affect their "performance" and so result in another attack of the magnitude of September 11th 2001? I don't think so. What is needed is sound intelligence, military leadership and considered plans of operations. Requirements that seem to have had been of little consequence for Bush, Cheney and Rumsfeld. "The documentary ignored the yield of interrogations. Did they save American lives on the battlefield or at home?"The documentary did in fact show the yield of torturous interrogations. That prisoners undergoing torture will say anything to stop the suffering. As was shown by Khalid Sheikh Mohammed admitting a link between Saddam Hussein and Osama bin Laden when clearly there was none, simply to stop induced drowning by "water-boarding". Colin Powell later admitted the information taken from Khalid Sheikh Mohammed was "incorrect". As a side note Khalid Sheikh Mohammed interrogations are mentioned as a source in the 9/11 Commission report 211 times.Saving "American lives" is no more important than saving anyone else's and history has proved that information taken under torture is totally unreliable.I find it hard to understand how anyone would not want their armed forces to perform with the highest principles of bravery and honour. To apologise for the use of torture is inexcusable and if these "tortures" become institutionalised then it will only be a matter of time before they will be used on citizens at home.

fwomp I often complain about the lopsidedness of documentaries. And more often than not, whenever I mention this, people pepper me with insults because they believe "that's what documentaries are designed to do." I beg to differ. Let me show you what I mean.There are some seriously stilted documentaries that look at one side (and ONLY one side) of an issue and never give credence to the other. How about an interview with someone who opposes the views that the documentarians are putting forth? How about some information that might refute what is being told? This one-sidedness is just too easy to find. Things like AFTER INNOCENCE, THE FUTURE OF FOOD, and RELIGULOUS are prime examples (there are tons more but I don't have the time nor inclination to mention them).Occasionally – if not extremely rarely – a documentary will come along that allows both sides to speak. And such is the case with the Academy Award winner TAXI TO THE DARK SIDE.The story starts and ends with the murder of Dilawar, a taxi cab driver in Afghanistan who is mistakenly picked up by U.S. forces and sent to Guantanamo Bay, Cuba for interrogation. Once there, he soon dies from injuries sustained at the hands of his captors. The middle of this documentary is the meat and potatoes of what went horribly wrong with the U.S.'s war on terror. It's a serious eye-opener. Not because it focuses on the problems the U.S. had with its detainees after 9/11, but because it allows everyone to speak about the successes and failures of torture. Yes, torture.From the men on the ground (staff sergeants and privates) to the President's advisory attorney at the U.S. Dept. of Justice (John Woo), we get to hear from just about everyone on the topic of the incarcerated detainees and their treatment at the hands of untrained and unprepared interrogators. It is astonishing, too, to learn that not a single person above the rank of sergeant was punished for the death of Dilawar (nor any other detainee who was abused). You mean to tell me that these grunts were responsible for ...everything? Give me a break! I don't delude myself any longer. The U.S. (either overtly or covertly) now uses "enhanced interrogation techniques" (e.g. torture). Make no doubt about it. We do it because we want to protect ourselves. But at what cost to our own moral compass? We claim to follow The Geneva Convention, but do we? Not as far as I can tell. And don't take my word for it. Watch ALL of the people in this documentary talk about this very subject and come to your own conclusions.

Robert J. Maxwell Anybody see "Cool Hand Luke" (1967) with Paul Newman as an inmate at a small southern prison camp? That's the one in which a guard tells Luke, "You got to get your mind right." A gripping movie, comic and then tragic. The guards, led by the pock-faced "man with no eyes", are real mean mothers. For infractions of the rules or any sassy backtalk, they lock Luke up in "the box", an upright wooden shelter the size of a one-hole outhouse, with only a pail for company. He's held there in the blistering heat for 24 hours. When Luke gets more uppity they simply beat hell out of him.Well, all of that is peanuts compared to what went on in our detainee camps at Bagram, Abu Ghraib, and Gitmo -- not to mention the CIA-maintained black holes in countries known around the world for their humane treatment of prisoners, such as Egypt and Bulgaria.The detainees at Bagram and Abu Ghraib -- only 10 percent of whom were picked up by coalition forces, the rest being turned over to us by Afghanis or Pakinstanis, sometimes for bounty -- were not subject to any questioning before being thrown into solitary confinement and held there not for 24 hours, like Luke, but for weeks. They were shackled to the ceiling, forced to assume stress positions, beaten on the legs, waterboarded and forced to undergo many of the other horrors we associate with the Inquisition.But that's an old story by now. This film doesn't really tell us much that we hadn't known or guessed, except that it was worse than we imagined. It begins and ends with the case of Dilawar, a taxi driver who left his family to drive to the provincial capitol and show off his new car and wound up in Bagram where he was killed -- one of 37 homicides so far acknowledged by the US Army. His legs were "pulpified" according to the Army's medical examiner.There are three fundamental issues involved in the application of enhanced interrogation techniques. (1) Do they work? (2) Are they moral? (3) Are they legal? "Taxi to the Dark Side", for most of its length, seems to focus on the first question. Does torture work? Well, no it doesn't.That is to say, it's worthless if your goal is to get accurate information out of your subjects. But it may be well worthwhile if your aim to exact revenge upon people who look like the lunatics who flew airplanes into the WTC in 2001, people who speak the same language and come from the same area, the Middle East. Boy, are those Middle East folks alien to us. The language sounds like they're clearing their throats. They wear tablecloths on their heads. They dream of 72 virgins in Paradise. If you want revenge, these are your targets alright. I doubt that one out of a hundred Americans could walk up to a blank map on the wall and put his finger on Afghanistan, Iraq, Iran, Pakistan, and Syria. We don't know anything about geography but we know what we don't like.The enlisted men who were tried for some of the crimes and interviewed for this film wouldn't say exactly that. For those who were willing to talk about it, they claim that their orders were vague. No officer was ever charged, while the enlisted men wound up with prison terms and BCDs.Also not spoken about -- probably because nobody knows about it -- are the taken-for-granted assumptions about relationships between guards and prisoners. It's all very well for us, sitting at home in our Naugahide recliners, to feel angry at the way the untrained and ill-led MPs performed but, as one of them says, "Try going over there and saying that." He's right. It has to do with role playing. It's not my opinion. It's established experimental fact. I refer anyone interested to Philip Zimbardo's famous "prison experiment" in the 1950s. It's probably available on Google.Well, you might ask, does anyone come out of this perfectly serious description of perfectly despicable acts looking good? Yes, in fact. The representative of the FBI argues persuasively that his agency was able to step out of the box and recognize what was happening. And a couple of politicians, like John McCain, coming late to the game expressed their disapproval in public.One is tempted to compare it to Errol Morris's "Standard Operating Procedure" but they're different movies with different ends in mind. Morris avoids easy judgments and asks in his usual philosophical way what the photos from Abu Ghraib "mean". This film is more interested in demonstrating what went on in the prison. I expected it to be an abusive moral diatribe but it turned out to be pretty instructive. We all know about the mistreatment, but I, at least, had never understood how endemic and intense it was. I give Gibney credit for not taking the easy route of bashing the suits in Washington more than they deserve, for not making fools of them more than they've done themselves. Only once, during a guided tour of Guantanamo Bay, does he turn sarcastic. As the cheerful guide (it's like a tour of Universal Studios) shows us the neat little cells with the neatly made bed and the comfortable slippers and the box of checkers on the night table, the pop tune "My Little Corner of the World" plays in the background -- ancient and mindless, kind of like torture.A depressing movie underneath it all.