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Rizwan Ahmed, Farhad Harun, Waqar Siddiqui, Arfan Usman, Ruhel Ahmed ... see more see more... , Asif Iqbal , Shafiq Rasul

Winner of the Silver Bear at the 2006 Berlin Film Festival, The Road to Guantanamo, directed by Michael Winterbottom and Mat Whitecross, uses interviews, news footage, and reenactments to tell the sto... read more read more...ry of the Tipton Three, young British men of Pakistani descent who were detained for over two years without charges at Guantanamo Bay by the American military. Shafiq (played by Riz Ahmed in the reenactments), Ruhel (Farhad Harun), Asif (Arfan Usman), and Monir (Waqar Siddiqui) traveled to Pakistan to take part in Asif's wedding to a Pakistani girl. Once in Pakistan, they hooked up with Zahid (Shahid Iqbal), Shafiq's cousin, and they all met in Karachi. There, they attended a mosque, where the imam urged worshipers to help those in need in Afghanistan, and where an inexpensive bus trip over the border was organized. Out of a sense of charity, or perhaps a naïve lust for adventure, the young men decided to travel to Afghanistan. The American bombing campaign begins shortly after they arrive. While trying to get back over the border, they find themselves in the Taliban stronghold of Konduz, where they are captured by the Northern Alliance during the Taliban surrender. At this point, Monir is separated from the group, and they never see him again. Shafiq, Ruhel, and Asif are brought to Sheberghan prison, where they are detained under miserable conditions, until the Americans discover that they are British. At that point, their journey to Guantanamo begins. Asif Iqbal, Ruhel Ahmed, and Shafiq Rasul describe their ordeal at the hands of American and British intelligence, who were determined to get them to confess their nonexistent links to Osama bin Laden and al-Qaeda, while the brutal scenes are reenacted onscreen. The Road to Guantanamo was shown at the 2006 Tribeca Film Festival. ~ Josh Ralske, Rovi

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64% liked it

26,568 ratings

Critics

86% liked it

95 critics

R, 1 hr. 35 min.

Directed by: Mat Whitecross, Michael Winterbottom

Release Date: June 23, 2006

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DVD Release Date: October 24, 2006

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Stats: 970 reviews

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Flixster Reviews (970)

  • blkbomb
    August 11, 2011
    blkbomb
    Shafiq: My name's Shafiq Rasul, and I'm from Tipton, I tell them I ain't Taliban, but they don't wanna listen. You won't believe I just came out here, for my mate's wedding, do you? I never thought my ass, would be heading for Cuba. 

    The Road to Guantanamo is a disturbing and ve... read morery well made docudrama about three friends from England who were imprisoned in Guantanamo. The film uses interviews with the actual people, along with new footage and reenactments of the events that took place. The movie is both sad and terrifying. To think about what those three went through and also about the others who had been wrongfully imprisoned there that we don't know about.

    Michael Winterbottom is an amazing director. This is up there with my favorite movie from him; A Mighty Heart. The way he weaves both the actual interviews and the reenactments together is great. The cast is actually pretty good. They make the situations and characters they are reenacting believable.

    This isn't a movie that you want to watch, but one that you need to watch. It's an important and well-made piece of filmmaking about The Tipton Three and the injustice they received at the hands of the United States Military.
  • StarCrossedVoyager
    April 2, 2011
    StarCrossedVoyager
    It's incredible and really brings to light what went/goes on out there. People who you would think you can trust eg. the US and UK military and embassy workers, spinning lies just to get those poor men to "admit" they're involved with terrorist cells. It's disgusting how they wer... read moree treated in Guantanamo and even more disgusting how only an extremely small amount of detainees there ever go to trial and the fact that none were found guilty is just horrendous. I understand the military not believing what some of those men say but obviously a lot of them are honestly telling the truth and being coaxed into confessions.
  • Tomassgringo
    March 30, 2008
    Tomassgringo
    Us Americans need to wake up as to what we are doing in the name of protecting ourselves from terrorist!! Are we becoming terrorist ourselves?
  • gator681
    July 30, 2006
    gator681
    [font=Century Gothic]"The Road to Guantanamo" is a documentary reconstruction about friends from Birmingham, England of Pakistani ancestry who venture to Pakistan in October 2001 for a wedding. At the start of American hostilities, they go to Afghanistan to help the Afghani peop... read morele but instead are caught up in the fighting and are captured by Northern Alliance fighters. That is only the beginning of their troubles...[/font]
    [font=Century Gothic][/font]
    [font=Century Gothic]"The Road to Guantanamo" is an important document for putting a human face on those imprisoned at Guantanamo Bay, the vast majority having never been charged with anything. This is an excellent look at the inhuman treatment the prisoners have suffered at the hands of the American authorities who are portrayed as not being interesting in guilt, innocence or intelligence gathered but in punishment. In conclusion, hopefully this film can be used at any possible future war crimes trial.[/font]
  • panta2
    August 5, 2009
    panta2
    I had no chance to see this movie at the Berlin Film Festival in 2006 (Winner), but I am doing it now... and I am glad I did it! Michael Winterbottom shows us a real culture of repression with always ready excuses from the US officials... Sad world we are living in... sad...

    W... read moreatch this movie to understand the world better!
  • randallangela1
    January 19, 2009
    randallangela1
    Harsh. I hate what I have seen of the American Military. I would be terrified to meet them in a war zone.
  • kylegarvey6
    October 19, 2011
    kylegarvey6
    As nerve-wracking and horrid as the real-life situations of Asif, Shafiq, and Ruhel clearly were, film is not the best vehicle to depict them. Michael Winterbottom's perpetual re-enactment is, surprisingly, more natural and finely scripted as the film goes along, but the whole of... read more it is unfortunately still just a blizzard of hard-to-follow remembrances.
  • StaisilD
    June 22, 2008
    StaisilD
    Based on a true story, The Road to Guantanamo tells the story of the Tipton Three, three British citizens who were arrested in Afghanistan in early 2002. The three men- Ruhal Ahmed, Asif Iqbal, and Shafiq Rasul, were detained at Guantanamo Bay for two years. While detained they w... read moreere denied legal representation and experienced severe mistreatment and coercion under duress in attempts to solicit confessions. They were released in 2004 and have provided some of the best first hand accounts of what the government is doing to suspected low-level terrorists. The meat of the film, which is basically a fifty-minute montage, depicts members of the Tipton Three dragged before American interrogators where they are yelled at, sworn at, and belittled. They are thrown into dank cells, put into stressful positions, and kept in solitary confinement with confession to being a member of Al Qaeda the only means to relief. These are chilling scenes, and will cause extreme disturbance, as you will surely be imagining all the other innocent people who are put through similar treatment, and all of those still going through it.
  • kaijawitch
    August 22, 2007
    kaijawitch
    One question.. How the hell did they get some of that footage?.. I highly doubt that they were being followed with a camera during that trip.. I realize that alot of it was staged for the filming.. but some of it was EXTREMELY graphic for staged footage.. (such as when one of th... read moreem is helping dig graves for the victims of the bombing).. You can generally tell where the real media coverage was used, and the actors they used were not terribly good, so you can tell that.. I don't know.. some scenes seem a bit too much to be reinactments..

    Okay, aside from that.. this is deeply disturbing.. I think the worst part is that after they were cleared they were still treated like criminals.. imprisoned for over a year AFTER they were OFFICIALLY cleared?.. because they would not sign a paper saying they were affiliated with Al Quiada..when it is a matter of record that they weren't.. that all the shit they tried blaming them for.. (such as the "pictures and photo's of them listening to Bin Laden that happened while two of them were in jail in ENGLAND and the other was WORKING in another country).. was completely falsified and honestly should have gotten some people booted from the militatry.. . I don't know what else to say.. and don't really care to.. Interesting film..
  • chrismen
    June 8, 2007
    chrismen
    Very nerve recking in a good way for viewers but a bad way for the people who really had to go through all this.

View All The Road To Guantanamo Reviews

Critic Reviews

Andrew O'Hehir
October 7, 2006
Andrew O'Hehir, Salon.com

The Road to Guantánamo will drive you crazy, if you aren't crazy yet. Full Review

Carrie Rickey
July 7, 2006
Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer

While not an altogether convincing character study of the three detainees, Guantanamo is a nonetheless chilling indictment.

Robert Denerstein
July 7, 2006
Robert Denerstein, Denver Rocky Mountain News

Offers a gripping rebuke of the way prisoners are treated at Guantanamo, even though it never entirely settles important questions about what the Tipton Three might have been up to.

Lisa Kennedy
July 7, 2006
Lisa Kennedy, Denver Post

Winterbottom's re-enactors do a persuasive job of depicting young men whose ad hoc decision to travel from Pakistan to Afghanistan put them solidly in the wrong-place/wrong-time category. Full Review

Bill Stamets
July 7, 2006
Bill Stamets, Chicago Sun-Times

A bracing docu-drama. Full Review

Colin Covert
July 6, 2006
Colin Covert, Minneapolis Star Tribune

Your view of its accuracy depends entirely on how truthful you feel the narrators are. I found it easy to believe the general outlines of their stories. In times of war, bad things don't happen only t... Full Review

Michael Wilmington
July 6, 2006
Michael Wilmington, Chicago Tribune

The moviemakers tell the trio's engrossing story with a mix of battering immediacy, precision and discretion that puts you totally in the movie's grip. Full Review

Eleanor Ringel Gillespie
July 6, 2006
Eleanor Ringel Gillespie, Atlanta Journal-Constitution

One-sided and, in part, anti-American, but via the fictionalized sequences, the directors convey more angles of the story. Full Review

Owen Gleiberman
July 5, 2006
Owen Gleiberman, Entertainment Weekly

...oddly unilluminating. Full Review

Geoff Pevere
June 30, 2006
Geoff Pevere, Toronto Star

It actually displays a remarkable rectitude when it comes to dramatizing its subjects' ordeal. Full Review

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