Award winning film is a look at the prison at Guantanamo Bay through the eyes of an innocent man who was sent there because one of his neighbors sold him out for money in Afghanistan.
While the film is set up to tell us what the experience of being at Gitmo is like it doesn’t really work because the film is set up from the first frame to be a polemic against the prison. I am not for the prison and I should think it should be shut down, however this film plays it almost like an exploitation film and as a steady stream of poor behavior. We get to see every form of torture and interrogation techniques that we know American officials are using in a greatest hits sort of a way and is less then affecting because it’s too much.
Not helping things is the fact that the performances are very weak. I don’t know if it’s because the script is so intent on spreading it’s message and the actors have nothing to work with (there are no characters as such), but everyone feels like they are reading their lines with no emotion. It’s awful. It’s not like the actors are phoning it in, but more there is nothing for them to do but spout pat lines. By the time one of the characters throws a coffee cup in frustration the film has long expired.
While I know this is a story that needs to be told, this is not the one that should be telling it.
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