Taxi to the Dark Side (2008) on Netflix
NR20081h 46mDocumentary
After 9/11, American interrogation and torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantánamo Bay come under scrutiny. Dilawar, an Afghan taxi driver, is held at Bagram Air Base.
- Netflix4.4/5
- IMDb7.4/1017,846 votes
- Rotten Tomatoes100%
Trailer
Plot summary
Dilawar was a peanut farmer in Yakubi, in eastern Afghanistan, who gave up farming to drive a taxi. In the autumn of 2002 he left home, having put the family's savings into a new taxi. On 1 December 2002 a local Afghan warlord handed him and three passengers to US military officials, accusing them of plotting the attack on Camp Salerno. Detained at Bagram and given prisoner number BT421, he was chained from the ceiling and beaten, and he died after several days. The documentary examines American interrogation and torture policy after 9/11, the CIA's research into sensory deprivation, the arguments for and against such methods, congressional efforts to uphold the Geneva Convention, and the exposure of Abu Ghraib, and it looks at Guantánamo Bay, where detainees faced the same methods.
Cast
Did you know?!Facts and trivia about Taxi to the Dark Side (2008)
Can contain spoilers, watch the movie first.
- Gibney dedicated his Best Documentary Feature Academy Award acceptance speech to Dilawar and to his father, a navy interrogator who had urged him to make the film because of his fury about the rule of law.
- In February 2008 the Discovery Channel said it would never broadcast Taxi to the Dark Side because of its "controversial" nature, drawing accusations of censorship; after HBO bought pay-to-view rights and aired it in September 2008, Discovery announced it would show the film in 2009.
- In June 2008, Gibney's company filed for arbitration, arguing that THINKFilm failed to properly distribute and promote the film after its release and Oscar win.
