September Tapes

This ersatz documentary about an American who travels to Afghanistan to join in the search for Al Qaeda has been called The Osama Witch Project, and that sums up both the film's style and its flaws. The handheld, fly-on-the-wall camera technique that gives September Tapes a cheap sense of gritty verisimilitude has long since become hackneyed, if not downright risible from its overuse in comic sketches. But more importantly, the film's very questionable taste turns a national tragedy into a vehicle for campy melodramatics in a plot revolving around a cache of videotapes found on the Pakistan border that document an unauthorized intrusion into the war zone by a guerilla filmmaker obsessed with tracking down Bin Laden. Cannily conflating what appears to be authentic footage with staged scenes, writer-director Christian Johnston's picture certainly carries a visceral impact, but the overlay of stilted, often mawkish narration works against the images, and when the film attempts to grab the viewer with a "surprise" ending, it's not only crudely manipulative but also rather obvious. While September Tapes shows talent, daring, and potential, one can't help but feel they've been misapplied in this film that feels like a prolonged setup to a rather unsavory punch-line. Not recommended. (F. Swietek)