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100% Critic Match
The Dark Side
“"We also have to work the dark side...we've got to spend time in the shadows..."”
10.0 / 10• 2006• 1h 24m•NR• English
Documentary
Storyline
On Sept. 11, 2001, deep inside a White House bunker, Vice President Dick Cheney was ordering U.S. fighter planes to shoot down any commercial airliner still in the air above America. At that moment, CIA Director George Tenet was meeting with his counter-terrorism team in Langley, Virginia. Both leaders acted fast, to prepare their country for a new kind of war. But soon a debate would grow over the goals of the war on terror, and the decision to go to war in Iraq. Cheney, Defense Secretary Donald Rumsfeld, and others saw Iraq as an important part of a broader plan to remake the Middle East and project American power worldwide. Meanwhile Tenet, facing division in his own organization, saw non-state actors such as Al Qaeda as the highest priority. FRONTLINE’s investigation of the ensuing conflict includes more than 40 interviews, thousands of pages of documentary evidence, and a substantial photographic archive.
Cast & Crew
Will Lyman
Self - Narrator
Lead
Dick Cheney
Self (archive footage)
George W. Bush
Self (archive footage)
Richard Clarke
Self - Dir. NSC Counterterrorism 1998-'01
GS
Gary Schroen
Self - CIA 1970-2002
JM
John McLaughlin
Self - Dpty. Director, CIA 2000-'04
BG
Bob Graham
Self - Senator (D-FL), Select Cmte. on Intel. 2001-'03
JB
James Bamford
Self - Author, 'The Puzzle Palace'
What People Are Saying
5.0
“A staggering achievement of craft and ambition. Michael Kirk's vision lands with breathtaking precision.”
5.0
“Every frame feels alive. The Dark Side is the rare release that takes its audience seriously.”
