First Hit: Almost felt too slick to be a documentary film about a severe black mark on the US Military and our government’s actions.
Don’t get me wrong, I don’t think all documentary films need to have a low budget feel nor do they need to be roughly created; however the slickness in which this was put together along with the flavor of the interviews left me with the feeling that something was glossed over and no one wanted to take responsibility for the treatment of the prisoners at Abu Ghraib.
There is a lot of buildup in the interviews of how tough it was with the fear of being bombed or shot each day and having been in Vietnam I understand this feeling but this isn’t an excuse for the treatment they imposed upon the prisoners.
The film is graphic in recreating some of the scenes depicted in the pictures and provides a timeline and a historical perspective of how the pictures came to be. The interviews are what disturbed me the most. I felt like General Janis Karpinski who was the commander of Abu Ghraib abdicated any responsibility as well as many of the other guards and military police. The interviews created a sense that they were all victims. What made it worse was that the only people who were punished were the lowest level people which points out how irresponsible our government is towards its own actions.
Overall: This was an interesting film but the ability to probe and place some responsibility for the behavior was left hanging.