The Kill Team

Effectively taking a low-key, dirge-like approach to a potentially sensational subject, director Dan Krauss's The Kill Team holds a cinematic inquest into crimes committed on the American side of the war in Afghanistan. Told mostly from the point-of-view of infantryman Adam Winfield and his family while preparing for Winfield's trial, the documentary tells the story of a number of young, macho occupation-force soldiers who were told that the territory was a "warrior's paradise." Seeing no difference between civilian and Taliban, they engaged in the killing of innocents for bragging rights. Winfield warned his parents via e-mail about the atrocities, but then was threatened by comrades that he could die just as easily in the field and nobody would know any better. By the time the "kill team" was arrested, Winfield had become as complicit as any of the more obvious murderers. What is truly terrifying (besides the brazen pride with which these young men express themselves in interviews) is the assertion that this type of heinous criminal activity happened all the time in U.S.-occupied Afghanistan—and that these guys were just the few who got caught. A deeply disturbing film, this is highly recommended. Aud: C, P. (C. Cassady)