The Dissident

What a story: video blogger Jamal Khashoggi criticizes the Saudi government.

Then, on October 2, 2018, he is filmed entering the Saudi consulate in Istanbul, Turkey…and never leaves (alive).

Audio recordings suggest he was hacked to death by order of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (“MBS”):

Team Biden in the U.S. says he was hacked to death by order of Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman (“MBS”).

Trailer for “The Dissident”

Watch “The Dissident”

You can watch “The Dissident”:

You can rent it for $ on Amazon, Apple TV and Microsoft.com too ($3.99 last I checked) — check here for the latest streaming options:

https://www.justwatch.com/us/movie/the-dissident

Ratings:

  • My Rating: 93/100
  • IMDB Rating: 8.2/10
  • Rotten Tomatoes Ratings: 95/100 (Users); 93/100 (Critics)

Release Date: January 24, 2020 (Sundance) and December 25, 2020 (broader distribution).

My Review of “The Dissident”

Imagine if John le Carré and Aaron Sorkin had a love child, raised it on a steady diet of NSA surveillance reports and Twitter threads, then sent it off to film school.

The result might look something like “The Dissident,” Bryan Fogel’s relentless, heart-pounding documentary that turns the murder of journalist Jamal Khashoggi into a geopolitical thriller.

Fogel, the guy who brought us “Icarus” (think Lance Armstrong, but with more vodka and state-sponsored doping), doesn’t just peel back the onion on this story – he takes a blowtorch to it.

The result is a layered, complex narrative that’ll have you googling “how to check my phone for spyware” faster than you can say “Saudi Arabia.”

At its core, “The Dissident” is about Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi journalist who went into a consulate and never came out.

But Fogel isn’t content with just giving us the facts, ma’am.

Oh no. He goes full Jason Bourne, minus the amnesia and plus a lot more smartphones.

We’re introduced to Omar Abdulaziz, a Saudi dissident living in Montreal who’s like a millennial version of Edward Snowden, if Snowden was really into Twitter wars.

Abdulaziz and his army of Twitter activists are waging a digital battle against Saudi crown prince Mohammed bin Salman’s troll farms.

It’s like watching a high-stakes game of chess, if chess pieces could tweet and potentially get you killed.

The documentary zips between Washington Post offices, Canadian apartments, and Turkish police stations with the urgency of a “24” episode.

Fogel weaves together CCTV footage, WhatsApp voice messages, and more infographics than a TED Talk on steroids.

It’s information overload, but in the best possible way – like mainlining a season’s worth of “Homeland” in two hours.

But here’s the kicker: amidst all the cloak-and-dagger stuff, Fogel never lets us forget the human cost.

Then there’s Hatice Cengiz, Khashoggi’s fiancée.

She provides the emotional anchor.

She waited outside the consulate for hours, expecting Khashoggi to return.

He never did. Fogel captures her pain and determination beautifully.

The doc calls out the big players. The Saudi government, the tech industry, and yes, even the U.S., all get put under the microscope.

It’s enough to make you want to chuck your phone into the sea and live in a cave – except you’d probably still be tracked by satellite.

“The Dissident” is not an easy watch. It’s dense, it’s complex, and it’ll leave you feeling like you need to take a shower and then immediately call your senator.

But it’s also vital, urgent filmmaking that reminds us why journalism matters.

And why human rights aren’t just some abstract concept.

And why you should maybe think twice before clicking “I agree” on those terms of service.

In a world where attention spans are shorter than a TikTok video, Fogel demands that we pay attention, that we care, that we remember.

It’s a tall order, but “The Dissident” rises to the challenge.

You’ll walk away exhausted, angry, and probably a little paranoid. But you’ll also walk away informed, and in today’s world, that might be the most radical act of all.

Some interesting things I learned from the doc:

  • 20% of the U.S. is on Twitter versus 80% of Saudi’s Arabia.
  • MBS reportedly orders an “army of Twitter trolls” to control the Saudi freedom of speech.
  • Turkish authorities find a huge “tandoori-like” oven in the Istanbul Consulate. It’s large enough to burn a corpse.
  • Biz leaders, including Amazon’s Jeff Bezos, pull out of MBS’s Davos in the Desert
  • The Washington Post (where Khashoggi worked) and which is owned by Jeff Bezos, runs articles critical of MBS, the crown prince. MBS reportedly considers this a Bezos betrayal. MBS reportedly taps Bezos’s phone and around the same time, Bezos’s affair is front page news in The National Enquirer.

Thanks for reading!

Rob Kelly, Chief Maniac, Daily Doc