The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

I just saw the film at a sneak preview screening in New York where we did not know what we were seeing. It's not the kind of film I would normally see, but I found that Mr. Abbas' story opened my eyes to what average Iraqis have suffered in this war. More, his story--and the charges against him--would be extremely funny if were not for the fact that they are true. Yes, US intelligence thought he was plotting to kill Tony Blair. How they thought he was supposed to do that (the only evidence they found was a bottle of shampoo!) is beyond me. The real shocker in the film is just how bad the conditions in Abu Ghraib were. The army admits now that up to 80% of the 1000s of prisoners there were in the wrong place at the wrong time.

I also agree with the previous poster that the comic imagery is a surprise, but it does work. The whole story reads like a comedy of errors--complete with cartoonish villains.

This film uses chapter breaks and comic book-style illustrations to highlight the amusing, astonishing, and horrifying absurdity of its central tale: that of an Iraqi that was taken prisoner based upon false information. The same duo that borough us Gunner Palace, a look at the Iraq invasion from the eyes of an American soldier, now presents a view from the Iraqi side in this indie film nominated for an American Spirit Award.

Now, one may tend to discount the testimony of an Iraqi about innocence or the conditions at the prisons, or the treatment by interrogators, but the fact is that there is overwhelming documentation written by U.S. military in high positions attesting to the fact that up to 90% of the prisoners had no intelligence values and were "simply in the wrong place at the wrong time." These same military officers also knew of the inhumane conditions in the prisons and the fact that basic sanitation was lacking, and that the contractor-supplied food was rancid and infested and caused the prisoners to vomit and experience diarrhea after they ate. This would be obvious to anyone who saw the prisoners as they had all lost weight.

The treatment of the Iraqis as documented in this film brings shame upon all Americans as we are the ones who allow those responsible to remain in office.

Look this is a good documentary about Journalisim/prison and USA brutality. I loved it, but the DVD I rented from Hollywood Video had the worst audio I seen since I've been in film school.

Is this for real or am I just tripping, the levels were all over the place. The main interview that is the narrative voice of the entire film was so low and everything else was high enough to wake the neighbors down the street. Didn't they have a post audio mixer?

Did anyone else have this problem or am I just tripping'?

Otherwise I wanted to really enjoy this but I couldn't get over the amateur audio. Come on this was a great story. Is it really this easy to make a movie and sell it and have audio issues. I don't think so. But every one in the room was agreeing this is bizarre. Maybe and hopefully this was a bad DVD, for what could be a great documentary.

"The Prisoner Or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair" is a movie with one hell of a provocative, eye-catching title. It's only after you figure out what the movie is actually about, however, that you get the full ironic flavor of that title.

This timely documentary chronicles the story of Yunis Khatayer Abbas, a freelance Iraqi journalist who, along with two of his younger brothers, was falsely accused of planning to assassinate the British Prime Minister during one of his official trips to Baghdad. The movie makes it clear that Yunis and his siblings were innocent from the get-go, and that, after serving nine grueling months at sites including the notorious Abu Ghraib, they were finally released back to their worried families, with a simple muttered "sorry" from the American commanders as sole compensation for the misery they'd suffered.

The story behind the movie is almost as intriguing as the movie itself. Yunis first came to the attention of documentary filmmaker Michael Tucker when the latter was embedded with a National Guard unit - whose job it was to scour Bagdad neighborhoods for suspected terrorists and weapon caches - on the night Yunis was arrested. Yunis' pleas of innocence, as well as his assertion that he was himself a journalist, piqued the interest of Tucker, who, two years later, decided to follow up on the story and find out what had become of the man.

A large portion of the movie's 72-minute running time is dedicated to Yunis speaking freely to the camera, relating the experiences that happened to him in his own unedited words. In addition, Tucker and his co-director, Petra Epperlein (also his wife), include footage of Yunis' actual arrest (first seen in Tucker's previous film, "Gunner Palace"), home movies of Yunis and his family at home and at the beach in happier times, and interviews with humane soldiers who served as guards during Yunis' captivity in Abu Ghraib. The brutalities and indignities Yunis suffered during his imprisonment come through loud and clear as he recounts the horrors of his experience. Epperlein, an artist in her own right, has also provided a series of stark graphic images to go along with Yunis' words.

Given its subject matter, "The Prisoner" will undoubtedly be seen by some on the Right as a mere leftist screed or tract, one designed to paint the Americans in the worst light possible and, in so doing, "provide aid and comfort to the enemy." It would be truly a shame if anyone saw the movie in such simplistic terms, especially as Yunis makes it quite clear that he was no fan of Saddam Hussein either, having suffered imprisonment and torture for daring to speak out against injustice under that regime as well. Plus, the movie emphasizes the humanity of many of the American fighters in standing up against the hellish treatment being inflicted on the prisoners under their care. Yunis speaks in glowing terms of some of these men, and it is clear that, through the experience, he forged lifelong relationships with a number of them. Yunis' understandable bitterness appears to extend only to the individuals responsible for his predicament, not to Americans in general.

It is a well-known, but rarely practiced, truism that the willingness to engage in honest self-criticism is the first step towards uncovering the truth and achieving justice in the world. "The Prisoner" is a small but crucial step in that direction.

I wholeheartedly agree with the review by 'pm-84' above. Who cares how many innocent Iraqis have to be treated sub-humanly and imprisoned for months on end? So long as Iraq is safe for Tony Blair to visit for a few hours when he feels like it, the war has been a success.

The film focuses on the imprisonment of Iraqi journalist Yunis Abbas, after his family home is raided by US forces who have received intelligence that Yunis is planning to bomb Tony Blair.

As 'pm-84' correctly points out, however, the real victim is Tony Blair. Everywhere Tony Blair goes, there may be people who want to do him harm. How are we to know who those people are until we imprison them for 9 months?

Despite their highlighting of the dangers faced by our brave Leaders, the filmmakers erred in showing sympathy to the enemy in a time of war, so for this I docked them one mark. 9/10.