The Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair

Co-directors Michael Tucker and Petra Epperlein were in Iraq filming the documentary Gunner Palace when they learned about the American military's September 2003 arrest of Iraqi freelance journalist/cameraman Yunis Khatayer Abbas, who was rounded up by U.S. soldiers seeking bomb-makers aligned with a terrorist cell, and then charged—along with three of his brothers—with conspiring to assassinate British Prime Minister Tony Blair. Although no evidence existed to suggest the brothers' involvement in such a plot, they were incarcerated at Abu Ghraib prison and brutally interrogated. Having no video footage of Abbas' time at Abu Ghraib, the filmmakers rely heavily on, of all things, comic book-style art to recreate both the horrors and absurdities of his imprisonment (at one point during his many interrogations, Abbas was asked if he liked Harrison Ford's movies!). Abbas appears on camera to recall his ordeal, but the big surprise lies in the testimony of one of his former jailers, Army Spc. Benjamin Thompson (whom Abbas calls the “good solider”). Jolting, disturbing, and astonishing, The Prisoner offers yet another example of something gone very, very wrong in Iraq. Highly recommended. (P. Hall)