2010 Sundance Film Festival

I really wanted to like this film. It's a gutsy project about an important subject...but the execution just felt flat to me. The film dragged--people were yawning and checking their watches and many left immediately after a round of polite applause. I got the point that Abu Jandal (former bodyguard to Osama Bin laden and the films protaganist) is a complicated guy and trying to navigate complex sociological and political territory in his portrayal of himself (and in fact seems like a total liar most of the time) to different audiences. And I was interested in the different rifts and interpretations of the old and new guards in Al Qaeda...but somehow in the end it hardly added up to a "lush, gripping novel." I never quite got a sense of who Hamdan (bin Laden's driver, Jandal's brother in law, and on trial in Guantanamo) was and his motivations except through Jandal's filters for the camera, which I utterly distrusted. I deeply appreciate the project of trying to humanize the complexity of these subjects for an US audience, but I guess for me, it didnt work. I wanted to be convinced but still felt distrust for Jandal and his proclaimed "new jihad" and Yemen's Dialogue project for "reformed" jihadis. Are we (and the director) being played?