Buried in the Sand - The Deception of America Movie Review

Are you a fan of torture and death? Have I got a movie for you!

Buried in the Sand is a conservative documentary that recaps the horrors of Iraq and the Middle East for those skeptical about our wartime presence there. The movie is largely composed of documentary footage of torture and executions during Saddam's regime -- dismemberments and beatings galore -- plus scenes of U.S. troops in combat and various undated and unlabeled footage of Middle East atrocities.

Hosted by right-wing political commentator Mark Taylor, we're treated to interviews with young Palestinians who are presumably training to become suicide bombers in Israel (what's this got to do with Iraq? I'm not sure), scenes of tanks rolling through Iraqi streets, night vision sniper footage, and the carnage left in the wake of suicide bombers.

The big guns come out in the end, with scenes from Abu Ghraib -- the only part of the film that paints the U.S. in a remotely negative light -- where photos of U.S. tortures are contrasted against videos of Saddam's guards beating the crap out of people and chopping off their hands. The final scenes are probably what you're expecting: The film ends with the infamous footage of several of the beheadings of Westerners. Note that there's no pixilation or black bars -- this is raw, raw stuff that will make even the strongest stomach turn.

There's a fairly obvious agenda at work here, and that's for you to ignore Fahrenheit 9/11 and buy in to the rhetoric of the right. You are invited -- mandated, really -- to get really pissed about the situation in the Middle East, and it's hard not to feel some level of animosity in the face of the goings-on. But that agenda is one-sided and rather pathetically presented. Taylor is the only person to actually appear in the film in a non-archival video, seen sitting on an absurd set comprised of a desk placed in front of a chain link fence and set on a pitch black sound stage.

As for the message, sure, there's no doubt that Saddam Hussein was very bad, and executions of Americans are awful things, too. Does this mean that Bush is a good president and that he's handling this mess ideally? Well, not even Mark Taylor makes that statement.