Review by Brian Tallerico 

A film festival could already be formed around the documentaries made about the U.S. involvement in the Middle East under the Bush administration. (You could make one with the narrative films too but, based on the critical and commercial returns of films like Rendition and Lions for Lambs, no one would go.) If opening night of the Iraq-doc Fest is the brilliant No End in Sight and closing night the Oscar-winning Taxi to the Dark Side, the biggest draw mid-fest would probably be Errol Morris' new doc Standard Operating Procedure. But S.O.P. isn't interested in the “big dogs” behind the current cluster**** in the Middle East. Morris leaves Bush, Cheney, Rumsfeld and the rest of the lame duck posse to others and turns his attention and his incredible skills behind the camera to the men and women who have become, in many ways, the scapegoats for the entire campaign - the soldiers of Abu Ghraib. One of the greatest interviewers in the history of the form interrogates the interrogators in Standard Operating Procedure to find out what's beyond the edges of the frames of those infamous photos. What he finds there is a story still being written about the corruption of power and the amazing way a camera can turn someone into a total idiot.

Forget Prom Night, any of the Asian horror remakes, or Welcome Home Roscoe Jenkins - Standard Operating Procedure is the scariest movie of the year to date. Morris is completely unafraid to show what happened at Abu Ghraib in all its naked, violent, disgusting glory. Don’t be surprised if you have to turn away at times and prepare for the stomach to churn when it’s revealed just how much of what went on in that hellhole broke no rules at all. And Morris gets the major players of one of the most crucial turning points in the war to open up about their involvement, refusing to demonize them like so many people have in the press. In fact, Morris goes a little too far with the "they were just following orders" chorus. That may be true, but there are tough questions of culpability that should be asked of these young men and women and there are natural follow-up questions to that end that were never asked or hit the cutting room floor.

Even more damaging to S.O.P. is the fact that, for every single one of these soldiers, guilty or not, the story is still being written. Standard Operating Procedure is, very frustratingly, all "second act." Almost the entirety of the film takes place at Abu Ghraib, describing and recreating in horrifying detail what was happening when the infamous photos were taken. We learn little to nothing about the soldier's lives before they got to Abu Ghraib and, with controversial stories that show just how high up the ladder the approval of torture went still being reported on the news as recently as this month and one of the major players still in jail, the film has an unsatisfying non-conclusion. It's comparable to trying to make The Fog of War during the height of the Vietnam War. Standard Operating Procedure might have been a masterpiece with a decade of hindsight, but it feels like just another log on the fire or an afternoon showing at a film festival that too easily blends in with all the others.

Rating: TWO AND A HALF BONES

Release Date: May 2nd, 2008

Rating: R

Starring: Christopher Bradley, Sarah Denning, and Joshua Feinman

Director: Errol Morris

Writer: Errol Morris