The Cult of the Suicide Bomber (2006)
Theatrical Release: Jun 2, 2006 Limited
Synopsis: This documentary by terrorism expert Bob Baer explores the origins of suicide bombing, and the virus-like spread of its use as a tactic in guerilla warfare. This documentary by terrorism expert Bob Baer explores the origins of suicide bombing, and the virus-like spread of its use as a tactic in guerilla warfare. [More]
Genre: Education/General Interest
Starring: Bob Baer
DVD Info
Release:
Jun 27, 2006
DVD Features:
- Region 0
- NTSC
- Keep Case
- Full Frame - 1.33
Audio:
- (unspecified) - English
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Reviews
The film effectively tracks the modern history of the insidious trend.
Our Puritan forefathers -- not to mention the small but growing sect of Christian "Dominionists" in this country -- might well understand the revivalist impulse.
An intriguingly idiosyncratic and highly personal filmed essay on the phenomenon of militarized Orwellian death cultists.
While not dramatic like 'Syriana,' Baer's doc provides provocative commentary on the motivations of these 'martyrs.'
Former CIA agent Robert Baer, whose memoir See No Evil was the basis for the 2005 Academy Award-winning film Syriana, narrates this chilling expose of that most terrifying of modern terrorists: the suicide bomber.
A fascinating history of how blowing yourself up became a popular hobby in the Muslim world.
Narrator Robert Baer tries to understand why humans would give up their lives to take those of others, and he's gained remarkable access to those at the center of this ideology.
An engrossing if intellectually thin documentary that purports to explain how suicide bombing evolved from a weapon of war into a weapon of terror.
[Robert] Baer's Tocquevillean tour is a spare but indispensable political-cultural exposé of a country and region poised to play an increasing and increasingly troubling role in the history of our own.
Baer dutifully outlines the tactic's 30-year evolution from a battlefield weapon of war to a civilian-targeting, chaos-seeking weapon of terror.
Many of us, of course, have spent hours at the movies relishing violence and explosions as entertainment. In the documentary The Cult of the Suicide Bomber, we see explosions in which real people die, and the sequence comes as a kick in the gut.
[The film] matter-of-factly enters the mosques, homes, shrine rooms, personal spaces, and neighborhoods of Muslim martyrs, probing the suicide bomber paradigm as it grew out of the Iranian Revolution and became a global phenomenon.


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