By Chlotrudis Independent Film Society
Rating: 2.5 cats
Director: Dror Moreh
Country: belgium, france, germany, israel
Year: 2013
Running time: 101
IMDB: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt2309788/combined
Chris says: “This Academy Award-nominated documentary consists of interviews with six former heads of the Shin Bet (essentially the Israeli equivalent of the Secret Service), spanning the Six Day War (late 1960s) to the present. The openness and candor with which these men speak is pretty staggering, especially when they touch on such hot-button issues as collateral damage and torture. Director Dror Moreh has cited Errol Morris’ THE FOG OF WAR as an influence and while this film compares favorably in substance (the topics raised and information revealed), Moreh doesn’t come close to matching Morris in style. THE GATEKEEPERS is one of the more visually inert films I’ve ever seen: although it’s tough to prevent talking heads from seeming interchangeable after awhile, the archival footage comes off as generic, and the computer-generated imagery barely registers. One can’t help but feel that, if not for its importance as a historical artifact, THE GATEKEEPERS would have gone straight to PBS. 2.5 cats”