Taxi to the Dark Side

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Taxi to the Dark Side

R

2008

1h 46m

Documentary

Crime

Drama

War

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Popcornmeter

100%

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93 Reviews

90%

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5,000+ Ratings

This documentary explores the American military's use of torture by focusing on the unsolved murder of an Afghani taxi driver who, in 2002, was taken for questioning at Bagram Air Force Base. Five days later, the man was dead. The medical examiner claimed the driver died from excessive physical abuse. Taking this case as a jumping-off point, the film examines wider claims of torture that occurred at bases like Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay during the Bush administration.

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Critics Consensus

Taxi to the Dark Side is an intelligent, powerful look into the dark corners of the War on Terror.

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Caryn James

New York Times

11/30/2017

Gracefully weaving together interviews (some with the soldiers convicted of the beating), fresh images and official photographs, it suggests why so many politically themed fiction films have failed.

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J. R. Jones

Chicago Reader

08/29/2011

Like the Iraq war documentary No End in Sight, this movie about the U.S. military's systematic torture of terror suspects is a triumph not of reporting but of synthesis.

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Peter Bradshaw

Guardian

10/18/2008

4/5

Alex Gibney won best documentary Oscar for this gruelling, angry movie.

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Bianca Garner

Filmotomy

10/04/2024

Taxi to the Dark Side still makes an impact all these years later and it’s lost none of its original impact.

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Mattie Lucas

From the Front Row

07/06/2019

3.5/4

Gibney approaches his subject in a clear-eyed way that keeps the film from becoming a political screed.

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Dorothy Woodend

The Tyee (British Columbia)

08/23/2017

Taxi to the Dark Side. . .examines the war in Iraq with clear-eyed rage.

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Gareth v

@geewah 06/20/2023

A relentless, disturbing look into one of the ugliest chapters in recent American history. Gibney shows why he is regarded as one of the best doco makers out there.

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Michael M

04/28/2021

Taxi to the Dark Side is a deeply disturbing documentary which uses the death of a single man to extremely convincingly expose the wider moral and practical failure represented by the American use of torture during the War on Terror. This should be required viewing for anyone who wants to discuss the continued existance of the detention facility at Guantanamo Bay.

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10/10/2020

Just saw this recently and although its an important watch I already have gotten this information elsewhere so its hard to find this that fantastic when it was mostly repetitive information for me sadly.

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charlie l

02/27/2020

The subject covered here is both disturbing and harrowing, but sadly, not unexpected.

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01/17/2020

Really speaks for a documentary made in the Bush Era

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Fong Kok Hoong F

03/04/2018

Alex Gibney's Oscar-winning documentary elicits the criminality of the Bush administration for its disregard of Geneva Conventions in the War on Terror is ironically what brings the American justice to its knees.

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Alex Gibney

Director

Alex Gibney

Narrator

Brian Keith Allen

Actor

Jack Cloonan

Actor

Greg D'Agostino

Actor

Carl Levin

Actor

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Synopsis

This documentary explores the American military's use of torture by focusing on the unsolved murder of an Afghani taxi driver who, in 2002, was taken for questioning at Bagram Air Force Base. Five days later, the man was dead. The medical examiner claimed the driver died from excessive physical abuse. Taking this case as a jumping-off point, the film examines wider claims of torture that occurred at bases like Abu Ghraib and Guantánamo Bay during the Bush administration.

Director: Alex Gibney
Producer: Eva Orner, Susannah Shipman, Alex Gibney
Screenwriter: Alex Gibney
Distributor: ThinkFilm
Production Co: Tall Woods, Discovery Channel, Jigsaw Productions, Wider Film Projects, X-Ray Productions
Rating: R (Graphic Nudity|Disturbing Images|Content Involving Torture)
Genre: Documentary, Crime, Drama, War
Original Language: English
Release Date (Theaters): Jan 18, 2008, Limited
Release Date (Streaming): Oct 21, 2019
Box Office (Gross USA): $274.7K
Runtime: 1h 46m

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