The Road to Guantanamo

Reviewer: Henry Leineweber
Rating (out of 5): ****

The Road to Guantanamo is not what I expected. In a market flush with post-9-11 documentaries, I was expecting more of the same: interviews with experts, former government officials, a brief history lesson, some stock footage, a few classic rock songs, and maybe a stunt or two thrown in to spice things up.

Instead, The Road to Guantanamo presents us with the firsthand accounts of three former detainees from Tipton, England. Asif, Shafiq and Ruhel, along with their cousin, are arrested in war-torn Afghanistan after haphazardly deciding to become fighters. Using reenacted scenes and interviews with the three young men, filmmakers Mat Whitecross and Michael Winterbottom present the viewer with a savage and suspenseful tale of mistaken identity. The film is still timely, too - the three men are tortured (in brutal re-enactments) by American and British intelligence trying to get a false confession out of them.

The Road to Guantanamo delivers in a way that similarly-themed films with a bigger budget or an all-star cast cannot, and the weight of the Tipton Three's account of their experiences carries the film remarkably well.

While the movie does a good job of shedding light on the horrible treatment of American and British detainees, it lacks a bit in other areas. Little background information is given, which may confuse viewers not expertly familiar with the chronology of events immediately following September 11th. Also, Guantanamo glosses over the fact that the young men did go to Afghanistan with the intent of becoming fighters, even though they never picked up a weapon and were in the process of leaving to return home when they were captured. DVD commentary sheds more light on this, but it's still not a prominent fixture.

Still, The Road to Guantanamo is a great work, doing a far better job of telling the story of detainees than any of the Hollywood dramas currently at the local cineplex.