The title role of The Torturer, directed by Graham Green, is an American contractor employee named Rick (played by Andrew Walker). For most of the film, he is in the office of a psychiatrist (played by Nichelle Nichols), who is trying to bring back his sanity so that he can continue to work as an interrogator. (The 1998 film Regeneration had a similar theme, involving British soldiers who had been shell-shocked during World War I.) Frequent flashbacks return to his interrogation of Ayesha (played by Mahsa Masoodi), who was arrested in Iraq and sent to an interrogation facility, presumably in another country, under the extraordinary rendition program authorized by President George W. Bush. Rick appears to suffer from post-traumatic stress syndrome because he followed well-established procedures in the Army interrogation manual but, not obtaining the information that he sought, engaged in “force drift,” that is, he become more and more abusive until he waterboarded and presumably raped Ayesha. She was arrested in Iraq because she was in possession of a Geiger counter. An Amnesty International volunteer, she sought to locate remnants of the depleted uranium weapons used by the American military so that she could declare their locations off limits in view of the danger of their exposure to the civilian population, in particular children (many of whom have developed leukemia as a result). However, the improbable premise for her arrest was that she was collecting uranium dust for a dirty bomb that could be used to blow up a target inside the United States. The purpose of Rick’s interrogation is to find the location of the bomb or the designated target. However, the film begins with a bomb being set in the trunk of a van, and the film ends with a TV news anchor (played by Sophia Choi) reporting that a dirty bomb has indeed exploded, damaging the president’s limousine but with no associated injuries or deaths. During the counseling session, the psychiatrist first seeks to find out how Rick feels about what he has done and then to reassure him that his misgivings are understandable and his actions are excusable because the president has given government officials permission to torture in the name of national security (though, as a contractor employee, he is not a government employee). But Rick is not comforted by her at all; he has his own agenda, says that he feels sick, and goes to her bathroom. When he emerges from the bathroom, however, the film takes an unexpected turn, and his equally unexpected redemptive actions follow. One important feature of The Torturer is a demonstration of some “authorized” torture techniques (which violate American law and are war crimes). Another is the precise citation of the relevant laws and regulations. Perhaps the most important point made is that the torturer’s mind is itself tortured with no easy way to achieve redemption except as featured in the film’s climax. The film’s tagline, “The film that will put Bush behind bars,” is an appropriate aspiration as Barack Obama takes office to clean up the mess created by his ignominious predecessor, who will risk prosecution if he leaves the United States, since authorizing torture is a crime with universal jurisdiction that can be a Damoclean sword hanging over him for the rest of his life with no statute of limitations. In other words, if Bush is not prosecuted during the era of the Obama administration, he can still be prosecuted anywhere outside the United States—or even inside the United States by any future plaintiff or prosecutor–until his death. That The Torturer leaves some considerable doubt as to the fate of all three main characters should be the question asked by filmviewers leaving a screening who are not otherwise horrified and, as has become customary in Bush’s America, passive rather than activated to stop such blatant illegality. However, the film lacks factual statements run as titles at the end so that film audiences will not believe that the entire plot is based on yet another filmmaker’s fantasy, as has too often been the case with cinematic efforts to skewer Bush during 2007 and 2008 (notably B.O.H.I.C.A., Body of Lies, In the Valley of Elah, Lions for Lambs, Redacted, Rendition, Stop-Loss, and Traitor. MH