Review: The Road to Guantanamo

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from the Berlin film festival...

The Road to Guantanamo

(U.K.)

A Revolution FilmsRevolution Films production in association with Screen West Midlands. (International sales: The Works Intl., London.) Produced by Andrew Eaton, Melissa Parmenter. Co-produced by Shahryar Shahbazzadeh. Directed by Michael Winterbottom, Mat Whitecross. Screenplay, uncredited.

Shafiq - Rizwan Ahmed
Ruhel - Farhad Harun
Monir - Waqar Siddiqui
Asif - Afran Usman

By DEBORAH YOUNG

'The Road to Guantanamo'

Michael Winterbottom's 'The Road to Guantanamo' takes a disturbing look at what happened to four British Muslims interned by U.S. forces.

The true story of four British Muslim boys who go to Pakistan for a wedding and end up in Cuba as tortured prisoners of the U.S. Army is retold as a modern horror story in "The Road to Guantanamo." Powerfully co-directed by Michael WinterbottomMichael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, the film has a winning combo of excitement and topicality that should get it rolling through international theaters, backed by critical support and press coverage.

Far more immediate than the news accounts that have been circulating, this graphic depiction of prisoner abuse at Camp X-Ray and Camp Delta is a punch in the gut meant to shock auds. Yet film also has a very British reticence that keeps it away from simple sensationalism.

For example, there is barely a nod at reports of sexual humiliation and no mention at all of prisoners dying. Nor does it go out of its way to demonize individual soldiers or their superiors, thus leaving Bush, Blair and Rumsfeld, who appear in newsreel footage, holding the buck for blatantly trampling on the Geneva Convention and human rights.

Closest in spirit to Winterbottom's Mideast immigration saga "In This World," this is a much more gripping watch. The actual protags of the story, who spent over two years in Guantanamo Bay before being released as innocent, tell what happened in head shots intercut with a fictional re-creation of events. Ruhel Ahmed, Asif Iqbal and Shafiq Rasul were 20-year-olds when, together with their friend Monir, left their native England to attend Asif's wedding in Pakistan.

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http://www.variety.com/review/VE1117929622?categoryid=31&cs=1

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