The Forever Prisoner

The filmmaker did an incredible job scoring interviews with people involved in the torture of a detainee in the frenetic post 9/11 world. A substantial majority of Americans had believed we were above this activity, and also that it didn't work, since people will tell you anything they think you want to hear when you inflict enough pain.

A perpetually smiley Ali Soufan gushes about questioning prisoner Abu Zubaydah , yet makes sure he emphasis that "he would nut interview him naked, he would nut go in"... I don't know why he was so determined that we know this, when the man had been hung by his arms, waterboarded, sleep deprived with screaming music , froze, and had multiple other horrid things done to him that sounded like torture . It reminded me of when John Wayne Gacy had killed like 35 dudes yet when interviewed he kept adamantly exclaiming that "he wasn't gay".

They had a psychologist named Mitchell with no experience interrogating writing up basically torture techniques for interrogation. I am amazed they got him to talk about it on camera . They should have taken a tip from physicians and not to let psychologists do to much damage by limiting them to talk therapy only , they are not allowed to prescribe drugs , they shouldn't be allowed to prescribe so called "interrogations ".

This was well made but the content made me less proud of my country than I was before. Well made, but it made me too depressed to give it more than an ambivalent score.

A very good and important film. Do not listen to to right or the left in reviews on this. See for your self and decide. This film has nothing to do with Marxism or leftist politics. It also has nothing to do with conservative conspiracies. Rather it dissects what has happened over the last twenty years in our reaction to 9/11. This film also doesn't believe all terrorists are innocent. If you believe that than you are just stupid. People watch films through their own filter. Leave the politics at the door.

As "The Forever Prisoner" (2021 release; 119 min.) opens, we are briefly introduced to a prisoner held at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, who amazingly has never been charged with a crime and who has no right to appeal his imprisonment. We then go back in time to the horrible events of 9/11 and the dramatic fallout afterwards, as the Bush administration is desperate to show the American public it has things under control... At this point we are less than 10 min into the documentary.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from esteemed and Oscar-winning director Alex Gibney (Taxi To the Dark Side, Agent of Chaos, The Armstrong Lie). Here he looks back at what happened to Abu Zubaydah, believed to be involved with or have ties to the group responsible for 9/11. He was captured in 2002, and brought in for interrogation. As it turns out the FBI and CIA had very different ideas what would make effective interrogating. The CIa prevailed, and charged ahead with its ultra controversial "enhanced interrogation" program, a/k/a its torture program. With stunning effect, Gibney lays out how the CIA misled, if not outright lied, about the program. Even worse, the program turns out to be massively ineffective if not counterproductive. I cannot easily recall a more blistering indictment and utter rebuke of the CIA, and how it has damaged not only the intelligence community in the US, but also America's standing in the world, period. Gibney has plenty of insider talking heads who narrate their story calmly and with devastating effect. Your blood will likely boil in utter disgust and disbelief as you watch the sheer ignorance and incompetence within the Bush administration in the post-9/11 era.

"The Forever Prisoner" premiered on HCO earlier this week and is now available on HBO On Demand and HBO Max (where I caught it last night). If you have any interest in what unfolded after 9/11 or simply want to get to the bottom of what the CIA's "enhanced interrogations" were all about and how they came to be, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

The facts of this have been presented elsewhere so it's not breaking news, but is still a compelling two hour view. One fact however, which might have been overly simplified, was fascinating. The "expert" psychologist who failed to understand that torture is about manipulation, not an easy path to truth, was himself so easily manipulated. When repeatedly told the hypothetical "what if there's another 9/11 and you didn't do all you could?" he went on the warpath, willing to do anything heinous. It says alot about him, not doing any due diligence or honest evaluation of his work which failed compared to normal relationship-building techniques. The initial methods of interrogation were bad enough, and what any normal person would consider torture...the "enhanced" interrogation was of course torture. Or what the psychologist called "temporary discomfort." Like Rumsfeld comparing his not sitting at his desk to prisoners being made to stand. They needed to minimize and dismiss torture because of their guilt. They knew it was indefensible for any reason, even national security, and was just a form of revenge.

This is an important film as it goes inside the actual behavior of what happens during these types of incarceration. Think of it more as a docudrama. The actins is good and there is a high degree of tension. It's not an easy film to watch.