Take a gander at this documentary’s title, The Cult Of The Suicide Bomber, and you might get the impression it’s going to argue that suicide bombers are driven by a single-minded, almost cult-like mentality.
Gee, do you think? Who could possibly imagine that folks who strap their bodies full of explosives and detonate themselves on buses full of people might, maybe, possibly, potentially, be batshit insane?
 The
revelations of The Cult Of The Suicide Bomber – that a systematic, culture-spanning brainwashing has
created a populace of people who not only think wanting to
be a suicide bomber isn’t crazy, but that it’s
a great thing of honor – are hardly are bona fide revelations.
Without knowing point one of the phenomenon it would be easy
enough to guess that populations who embrace this sort of
thing don’t spring out of whole cloth; that they must
be guided to such a twisted worldview. But that doesn’t
make this any less fascinating, and more notably, downright
chilling.
Chilling best defines what you’ll see here. It’s not that there is real life gore on hand. It’s not that the film is brimming with anti-Islamic hyperbole. (in fact, it’s not.) It’s that what we see here is presented in such a cold, matter-of-fact manner it’s almost impossible to absorb without scraping your jaw from the floor.
 Imagine
this scene: A young man, bright, beloved, intelligent. He
has his life ahead of him. We see him on a home videotape,
posing, smiling, confident. He is behind the wheel of an SUV.
He could easily be the college kid next door posing in his
first new car. A short while later – mere minutes after
what we were seeing before – we see that same SUV on
the outskirts of a city. The driver – the smiling, vibrant
young man we met just moments before – is trying in
vain to catch up to a bus full of people. Innocent people.
Just going about their day.
Because he wants to explode himself near them.
Our bright-eyed driver – the fella who could be that
college kid next door, you’ll recall – isn’t
willing to give up. He’s tenacious. Has his whole life
(all 15 seconds of it) before him. Being proactive rather
than reactive, he gives up on the bus and spots an “enemy”
patrol nearby. (Who the “enemy” is doesn’t
really matter.  Over
the years the enemy changes time and again. The results, however,
are always the same.) The charismatic guy we had met a few
minutes before points his SUV at the patrol, gets close, and
the entire scene erupts into a violent cloud of smoke and
death and sand and shrapnel.
He could be any random kid you see any day of the week, his smile wide and his face glad. And he just willingly, on videotape, blew himself to bits for some foggy notion few outside his own world will ever understand.
But wait. We’re not done with this scene yet. Imagine, if you will, that same videotape being played at the funeral of the young man whose suicide (or “martyrdom”) we just watched. It is being played for loved ones; friends; family; friends of family. They are watching him die. And when the explosion that took his life erupts on screen ...
The crowd cheers and applauds.
Later, they shake hands with the father of the dead young man, congratulating him – congratulating him – for raising such a fine son.
 This
is the cult of the suicide bomber.
Over the course of this film’s 96 minutes we live with
a lot of stunning scenarios, and while few are as jarring
as the one above, I find it difficult to imagine an intelligent,
free-thinking person who won’t be disturbed time and
again by the fanaticism on display here. Robert Baer, a former
CIA spy and the man George Clooney portrayed in the Oscar-nominated Syriana, takes us through the inner workings
of a culture that has, through the efforts of a select few
leaders, attached notions of glory, honor and dignity to people
who kill themselves in order to kill others.
This isn’t an Islamic thing. To be sure, the glorious
notions of martyrdom are closely attached with religion in
the Middle East, but the truth is, the manipulation we see
here need not be attached to any particular religion. It only
need be attached to a poor, desperate culture in need of something
to cling to. I don’t say that to be politically correct,
I say that because after entering the homes of these folks,
after seeing the families of those of “martyred”
themselves, it’s the exact impression I’m left
with.
That,
and I’m left with depression, sadness, and a cross between
deep pity and seething anger. (Pity for the families, not
the scumbags who do this; anger at the insidious minds who
urge others to die for “honor” while they reap
the rewards.)
The Cult Of The Suicide Bomber plays it
straight, plays it honest, and plays it with a detached objectivity
that makes it far more difficult than any gung ho “don’t
terrorists suck?” film ever could. You don’t need
waving flags  and anthemic songs to pump up your distaste when
you have calm, clear footage of people who honor 13-year-old
boys who blow themselves up as if they were saints.
You’re not going to have less distaste for the atmosphere that creates suicide bombers after watching this, you’ll have more. The thing is, the nature of your distaste will change.
DVD Presentation
We’ve got home movies and news footage nestled between footage of Baer in various Middle East locales. Knowing that, you’d expect this to look pretty poor. Well, it doesn’t. The archival footage looks like archival footage, but the “core” material of Baer speaking with families is surprisingly solid. Same goes with the audio; subdued, not in your face, but always clear. Not going to win any awards, to be sure, but this presentation most certainly does not fall short of the mark.
Disc Extras
None. Nada. Zilch. That’s a bit disappointing, too. At the very least a bio on Baer would have been nice.
The Bottom Line
There is no way to avoid this very basic fact: People who strap explosives to their body, wade into a crowd and blow themselves up are vermin. And more importantly, insane vermin.
Watching The Cult Of The Suicide Bomber isn’t going to change your mind about that, nor should
it. What it will do is help you understand where
people like that come from. And that is a fascinating journey
to take.
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