Taxi to the Dark Side (2007)

Where "No End" is cool and measured, Taxi is hot, anguished, and sometimes as difficult to watch as pictures of torture ought to be.

What one interviewee calls a "fog of ambiguity" surrounding what was and wasn't officially authorized shielded superior officers and key members of the Department of Defense -- namely Donald Rumsfeld.

It’s the equal of "No End in Sight" in its tight focus on the nuts and bolts of incompetence, and it surpasses any recent melodrama in the empathy it evokes for both its victims and--surprisingly--victimizers.

If recent American history is ever going to be discussed with the necessary clarity and ethical rigor, this film will be essential.

Alex Gibney's forceful documentary starts with a single tragedy: the torture of an Afghani prisoner at Bagram Air Base. By the time it's over, he's broadened his focus into a documentary so damning of the U.S. government, it's hard to believe he even got it made.