My Trip to Al-Qaeda (2010)

This isn't so much Alex Gibney's documentary as it is Lawrence Wright's powerpoint presentation. So I think any criticism must be leveled at Wright (which has been the case in other reviews).The documentary attempts to draw conclusions from a large and complex political environment, and as Wright has years of personal experience here, he draws on this to make these conclusions. This is a problem, as the micro is being used to reinforce the macro. Now, I'm not saying wide conclusions cant be drawn from an isolated case, look at The Oath (2010) for an example of how to do this well. But here Wright's focus causes the viewer to have an unclear understanding of important points of his argument. I.e. the difference between an Islamist and a Jihadist is not shown well. And much depth seems missing from the actions of the West in breeding this 'humiliation'; for example the trade embargo on Iraq post the Gulf War, harming millions of innocents, is completely missing. Wright's goal is to understand the motivation and mind-set of the jihadist, and I think he fails due to his starting point being his personal experiences.Wright's experiences however, happen to provide the most interesting parts of this documentary. The wire-tapping he encountered for example, held my attention far more than his introspective rant to finish. This documentary really should have just centered one or two of these personal aspects in isolation, or even just Wright's life. The conclusions would have been much stronger.

This is a very good documentary--we wouldn't expect less from filmmaker Alex Gibney--but My Trip to al-Qaeda succeeds in ways that Gibney may not have intended. Based on a play by reporter and author Lawrence Wright, the film provides a history of the development of al-Qaeda--much of it quite valuable, most of it interesting--but also exposes the man's deep-seated contempt for 'backwards' Islam, unfailing belief in American exceptionalism, and apparent inability to imagine any other kind of society than the one in which he lives. The reliance on 'good Muslims' such as former FBI agent Ali Soufan and a representative of the Quilliam Foundation, a taxpayer-funded front organization for Britain's (New) Labour Party, to tell his story is a dead giveaway: whilst Wright doesn't seem like a bad guy, he also doesn't come across as particularly curious or particularly willing to engage with alien ideas and philosophies. Perhaps his book The Looming Tower is a better representation of his thinking, but what we see here seems a bit on the shallow side.

This video is the Prime example how west is manipulating the brains of people who don't know much about Islam and People of Egypt. Its a propaganda video in a sweet way to spread hate and negativity of Islam and Muslims, Really shame on Author and i pity how less he knows. Sham on you.There are so much information in the documentary which is false and has no true Islamic truth, Author is just assuming what he thinks is right but he never care enough to know what exactly is the truth.I seriously don't see any logic behind this video other than to give Muslim and Islam bad name, director/author thinks that people in middle east are imagining the truth and their beliefs are self made. Which i find really deceptive and prerogative.

First let me say I am a conservative at heart but I'm also open minded to hearing the point of view of others. Whether you are on the right, left or somewhere in between this is an excellent documentary. This film was completed very objectively with no perceived, at least by me, bias for one view point or another.Lawrence Wright, in my opinion, identifies well America's complacency and false sense of inferiority. Mr. Wright also describes very clearly the extent to which Al-Qaeda will go to fulfill their prophecy. This film is not intended to be a scare tactic but to simply and objectively state the facts.Every American should take an hour and half of their selfish day and watch this film. Not to brew hatred or to scare people to action but to educate them about the determination of Al-Qaeda.