Movies
Weekend Box Office
Film Awards & Top 10s By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
Best / Worst of the Decade
Wide Releases
Now In Theaters
49
2012
41
Alvin and the Chipmunks: The Squeakquel
84
Avatar![]()
69
Bad Lieutenant: Port of Call New Orleans
53
Blind Side
53
Book of Eli, The
55
Christmas Carol, A
57
Daybreakers
43
Dear John
27
Did You Hear About the Morgans?
55
Edge of Darkness
45
Extraordinary Measures
83
Fantastic Mr. Fox![]()
42
From Paris with Love
65
Imaginarium of Doctor Parnassus, The
74
Invictus
57
It's Complicated
34
Law Abiding Citizen
33
Leap Year
33
Legion
42
Lovely Bones, The
54
Men Who Stare At Goats, The
34
Ninja Assassin
19
Old Dogs
xx
Percy Jackson & The Olympians: The Lightning Thief
39
Planet 51
79
Precious: Based on the Novel by Sapphire
73
Princess & the Frog, The
64
Road, The
57
Sherlock Holmes
27
Spy Next Door, The
36
Tooth Fairy
44
Twilight Saga: New Moon, The
83
Up in the Air![]()
xx
Valentine's Day
25
When in Rome
71
Where the Wild Things Are
xx
WolfMan, The
63
Youth in Revolt
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Limited Releases
Now In Theaters
46
44 Inch Chest
83
Ajami![]()
73
Amreeka
xx
Barefoot to Timbuktu
19
Bitch Slap
24
Boondock Saints II: All Saints Day, The
76
Broken Embraces
64
Cloud 9
65
Coco Before Chanel
84
Cove, The![]()
84
Crazy Heart![]()
21
Crazy on the Outside
48
Creation
xx
Daddy Long Legs
81
Damned United, The![]()
68
Departures
62
District 13: Ultimatum
85
Education, An![]()
71
Eyes Wide Open
24
Falling Awake
81
Fish Tank![]()
56
For My Father
xx
From Mexico with Love
43
Frozen
68
Girl on the Train, The
52
Killing Kasztner
74
Last Station, The
43
Little Traitor, The
51
Loss of a Teardrop Diamond, The
73
Me and Orson Welles
76
Messenger, The
57
Missing Person, The
67
Most Dangerous Man in America: Daniel Ellsberg and the Pentagon Papers, The
xx
My Name is Khan
49
Nine
63
North Face
xx
October Country
67
Off and Running
52
Paranoids, The
49
Pop Star on Ice
49
Private Lives of Pippa Lee, The
xx
Promised Lands (Re-release)
69
Red Riding Trilogy, The
29
Saint John of Las Vegas
69
September Issue, The
36
Serious Moonlight
63
Shinjuku Incident, The
77
Single Man, A
xx
Still Bill
76
Terribly Happy
74
That Evening Sun
19
To Save a Life
68
Town Called Panic, A
59
Until the Light Takes Us
xx
Videocracy
65
Waiting for Armageddon
82
White Ribbon![]()
43
Women in Trouble
xx
Word is Out
64
Young Victoria, The
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
Prisoner or: How I Planned to Kill Tony Blair, The
EMAILPRINTRed Envelope Entertainment

Generally favorable reviews
Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?
Based on 2 votes
Read user comments
Rate this movie >
Movie Info
Genre(s): Documentary
Written by:
Directed by:
Petra Epperlein
Michael Tucker
Release Date:
Theatrical: March 23, 2007
Running Time: 72 minutes, Color
Origin: Germany / USA
Summary
RATING: PG-13 for some strong language and mature thematic elements
Starring Yunis Khatayer Abbas
In an absurd comedy of errors, a freedom-loving Iraqi journalist is mistaken as Tony Blair's would-be assassin and sent to Abu Ghraib Prison where he discovers the true meaning of liberation. (Red Envelope Entertainment)
Also On Metacritic
FILM: Gunner Palace
Also On The Web: Internet Movie Database View The Trailer Official Studio Site
What The Critics Said
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
Chicago Tribune Michael Phillips
The style is brash, and it works. Tucker and Epperlein illustrate Yunis' account of his eight-month imprisonment, much of that time spent at the notorious Abu Ghraib compound, with literal illustrations--pages seemingly torn out of a Frank Miller graphic novel.
Read Full Review >Entertainment Weekly Lisa Schwarzbaum
Eight months of interrogation and torture in fetid Abu Ghraib followed before he was released, innocent. None of The Prisoner's showy flourishes -- animation, sound effects, fancy editing -- can match the power of Abbas' stillness as he describes one man's agony in one huge hell.
Read Full Review >Film Threat Merle Bertrand
War is chaos and confusion even under the best of circumstances, of which this current fiasco clearly ain’t. The Prisoner… underscores this fact, as well as muddying up the waters on such commonly accepted platitudes as "Support the Troops."
Read Full Review >Time Richard Schickel
A modestly mounted, but curiously poignant little documentary... which somehow -- quietly, devastatingly -- shows and tells you more than you may perhaps want to know about the dehumanization implicit in the mighty, blighted Iraqi adventure.
Read Full Review >San Francisco Chronicle Peter Hartlaub
While the documentary isn't as compelling as its source material, Abbas tells an interesting story about his incarceration.
Read Full Review >Boston Globe Ty Burr
It's an angry story, but also a strangely hopeful one, in the sense of new life sprouting through a battlefield. Above all, it's personal and specific, and that IS news we can use.
Read Full Review >New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman
The film leaves us wondering about all the war stories we haven't heard.
Read Full Review >Variety Joe Leydon
The Prisoner is in many ways a justifiably angry film, simmering with moral outrage. But it is also -- surprisingly, maybe even amazingly -- hopeful.
Read Full Review >Village Voice Michelle Orange
Yunis, as he imploringly reminds us, is the Iraqi people, but he is also steeped in Hollywood references, pulling analogies for the U.S. occupation from "Rambo" and "Dirty Harry."
Read Full Review >Washington Post Philip Kennicott
It is a film rich in detail, the kind that simply never emerges in the nightly news accounts of the war.
Read Full Review >Wall Street Journal Joe Morgenstern
What's troubling about the film's technique is its lack of context; we must take Yuris, who speaks serviceable English, pretty much at his word. What's troubling about his story is its ring of truth.
Austin Chronicle Marrit Ingman
The very concept of such an assassination isn't so absurd as to be wacky – at least not since somebody fired a rocket at UN Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon last Thursday.
Read Full Review >The Onion (A.V. Club) Nathan Rabin
By recounting Abbas' ordeal as an endless inarticulate monologue, The Prisoner reduces it to a dull anecdote--timely and relevant, perhaps, but an anecdote all the same.
Read Full Review >The New York Times Manohla Dargis
It is a depressing story, certainly, as well as moving, confusing and, at a fast 72 minutes, at once undercooked and overpadded.
Read Full Review >Los Angeles Times Mark Olsen
The film becomes a dizzying descent into a world of contradictions, military illogic and ineffectual bureaucracy.
Read Full Review >Chicago Reader J.R. Jones
His story demands to be heard, though Tucker and Epperlein lack the material for a full feature and pad this out to 73 minutes with some incongruously playful elements (spy music, comic-book illustrations, scenes of Abbas frolicking at a beach).
Read Full Review >What Our Users Said
The average user rating for this movie is 10.0 (out of 10) based on 2 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Adam H. gave it a10:
This film is a sequel of sorts to "Gunner Palace" the Iraq film that came out in 2005. Much like that film, The Prisoner is not overtly political, rather, it lets the characters tell the story. In Gunner Palace, the perspective is the American soldier. In The Prisoner, the perspective is largely Iraqi. The films should be watched together to fully appreciate. I don't want to give away too much, but I can say that you walk away from this film feeling like you know an Iraqi and have a new sense of just how much the Iraqi people suffered--both under Saddam and during this conflict. The film is also surprisingly funny and it should come with a disclaimer that gives the audience permission to laugh. It would be funny if it wasn't true.
Lara gave it a10:
I saw this film at a New School/WNYC hosted screening in New York last night and had to share how overwhelmingly moving nad strangely uplifting it was. Go see this movie if you want a glimmer of hope that people in this country can sympathize with people in others and we can actually come together in times of great trouble. The filmmaking was completely entertaining and the film funny, almost hilarious at times. 5 stars!
