70
Yunis, as he imploringly reminds us, is the Iraqi people, but he is also steeped in Hollywood references, pulling analogies for the U.S. occupation from "Rambo" and "Dirty Harry."
What are people saying?
What are critics saying?
75
New York Daily News by Elizabeth Weitzman
The film leaves us wondering about all the war stories we haven't heard.
70
The Prisoner is in many ways a justifiably angry film, simmering with moral outrage. But it is also -- surprisingly, maybe even amazingly -- hopeful.
70
Wall Street Journal by Joe Morgenstern
What's troubling about the film's technique is its lack of context; we must take Yuris, who speaks serviceable English, pretty much at his word. What's troubling about his story is its ring of truth.
83
Entertainment Weekly by Lisa Schwarzbaum
Eight months of interrogation and torture in fetid Abu Ghraib followed before he was released, innocent. None of The Prisoner's showy flourishes -- animation, sound effects, fancy editing -- can match the power of Abbas' stillness as he describes one man's agony in one huge hell.
50
The New York Times by Manohla Dargis
It is a depressing story, certainly, as well as moving, confusing and, at a fast 72 minutes, at once undercooked and overpadded.
80
War is chaos and confusion even under the best of circumstances, of which this current fiasco clearly ain’t. The Prisoner… underscores this fact, as well as muddying up the waters on such commonly accepted platitudes as "Support the Troops."
100
Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips
The style is brash, and it works. Tucker and Epperlein illustrate Yunis' account of his eight-month imprisonment, much of that time spent at the notorious Abu Ghraib compound, with literal illustrations--pages seemingly torn out of a Frank Miller graphic novel.
58
By recounting Abbas' ordeal as an endless inarticulate monologue, The Prisoner reduces it to a dull anecdote--timely and relevant, perhaps, but an anecdote all the same.
70
Washington Post by Philip Kennicott
It is a film rich in detail, the kind that simply never emerges in the nightly news accounts of the war.