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.
