Watch Terror's Advocate For Free

Just perfect...

Through painfully honest and emotional moments, the movie becomes irresistibly relatable

There are moments in this movie where the great movie it could've been peek out... They're fleeting, here, but they're worth savoring, and they happen often enough to make it worth your while.

This movie feels like it was made purely to piss off people who want good shows

French-Swiss producer and director Barbet Schroeder's documentary feature is based on his opinions about his main interviewee. It premiered in the Un Certain Regard section at the 60th Cannes International Film Festival in 2007, was shot on locations in Algeria, France, Cambodia and Lebanon and is a French production which was produced by producer Rita Dagher. It tells the story about a person of Vietnamese and French origins who was born in Thailand on the 5th of March in 1925, raised on Réunion Island in France, taken to a mass grave by his parents as a ten-year-old, served his initial service as a seventeen-year-old, joined the French Communist Party as a twenty-year-old, studied literature and eastern languages in Paris, France, began studying law as a thirty-year-old after his twin-brother named Paul Vergès was arrested for the murder of a political opponent of his father named Raymond Vergès and as a thirty-two-year-old lawyer was introduced to an Algerian Muslim and political activist named Zohra Drif and asked to defend an Algerian member of the National Liberation Front Algeria named Djamila Bouhired. Distinctly and precisely directed by French-Swiss filmmaker Barbet Schroeder, this finely paced documentary which is narrated interchangeably from multiple viewpoints though mostly from the central person's point of view, draws an informative portrayal of a son, brother, husband, father, anti-colonist and renowned 20th and 21st century author and defense attorney with both French and Algerian citizenship named Jacques Vergès (1925-2013), and his relationship with his clients. While notable for its versatile milieu depictions and reverent cinematography by cinematographers Caroline Champetier and Jean-Paul Perrard, this narrative-driven story about the history of international terrorism and France-Algeria relations, connections, colonialism leading to anarchy, terrorism and war and what it is like for people to live in colonized countries, where interviews with friends, Cambodian, Algerian, Palestinian, German and Lebanese freedom fighters, members of Popular Front for the Liberation of Palestine, members of Khmer Rouge, members of Revolutionary Cells, secret service agents, Stasi agents, revolutionary Islamists and Christians, journalists, jurists, collaborators, politicians, historians and philosophers talks about their experiences, political views and views on the person in question, depicts a majestic and mysterious study of character and contains a great and timely score by composer Jorge Arrigada. This somewhat humorous though thematically on the contrary, poignantly atmospheric and retrospectively historic documentary feature from the late 2000s which is set in the late 20th century and early 21st century in European, Middle eastern and Asian countries and where the life of a profound jurist and character with character who surpasses many great acting performances in cinema history, who defended terrorists, dictators and war criminals, who worked in mysterious ways and who in the 1970s after having gotten married with a client and converted to Islam went incognito for eight years, is placed into an historical context which commendably emphasizes the irrevocable consequences of terrorism and how closely associated state officials are with militant groups, is impelled and reinforced by its fragmented narrative structure, rhythmic continuity, cinematic use of archival footage, news articles and photographs, interviews which ranges from Tunisian journalist Lionel Duroy, German former exile Hans-Joachim Klein to German photographer Magdalena Kopp and comment by Mansour : "But after having considered the case,- maybe they heard voices like Jeanne d'Arc did, they chose me." An investigative biographical mystery.

This really hadn't any beginning, middle or end. It simply was a long conversation with various persons and Jaques Verges, the advocate of terror.The idea is an intriguing one, that of a lawyer who defends the reprehensible because he believes in due-process and the law more than abstract ideas like morality and goodness.But this isn't what it was, because Verges never believed his clients lacking in morality or goodness. He represented these clients because politically he felt he had to.It'd been more interesting (I think) to understand the psyche of a lawyer who represents clients he himself (or she herself) detests and holds no political allegiance to.The runtime is a bloated two-hours and seventeen minutes, and in that time holds very little focus. It's very interesting subject-matter, but it's presented in such a wandering manner that leaves us bored. Only two or three trials are explicitly discussed and played out for the viewers. The rest of this film is Verges political tendencies and how they have got him in hot water with the French government.

Terror's Advocate is a must-see for anyone interested in anti-colonialist movements or the politics and terror attacks of Europe in the 1970s and 80s. In many ways, attorney Jacques Verges' tale plays like a who's who of late-20th century international intrigue. Viet Nam, Algeria, Zaire, Cambodia, China, Pol Pot, Yasser Arafat and Carlos the Jackal are but a few of the hot spots and honchos to play a part in the duplicitous attorney's life.As a film, Terror's Advocate is not without its shortcomings. At well over two hours and consisting almost exclusively of interview footage, it is more reminiscent of the documentary style of yesteryear, employing no editing tricks or clever voice-overs that lend appeal to the more modern style of filmmakers like Michael Moore or Morgan Spurlock. From an entertainment standpoint, the film definitely could have benefited from a greater use of file footage as well as better introduction to some of the major players, whose backdrops are often relegated to a single, brief subtitle. A prime example is the mention of the murder of Lumumba, a onetime communist ruler of the freshly independent Belgian Congo. After being overthrown and murdered by CIA directives and an aggressive colonel named Mobutu (who would eventually despotically rule Zaire for over three decades), Lumumba was replaced by Tshombe. Both Lumumba and Tshombe are mentioned in the film without a single reference to Zaire or the Congo. Similarly, little backdrop is created for Carlos. In doing so, the film assumes a lot of knowledge of events from its viewers, probably too much.Nevertheless, Verges is a fascinating character. His path, once pristine, very clearly strays from the light. Modern history generally credits the agenda of the Algerian "terrorists" that expelled the French in 1962. Pontecorvo's Battle of Algiers is a cornerstone of revolutionary anti-colonialist film-making and interestingly is used today as a reference by anti-terrorist government luminaries like Richard Clarke, the onetime anti-terrorist czar and biggest proponent of eliminating Al Qaeda in the presidential administrations prior to the 9/11 attacks. Somewhere along the way, though, Verges lost the faith, for the struggles of the proud Algerians can hardly be compared to the mercenary and ruthless murders committed by Carlos, a Russian/Columbian fighting in the name of Palestinian extremists, but more for his own profit. The former terrorist Stein hilariously refers to Carlos as a psychopath and laments the sad state of Algeria when its leaders later tell him that Hitler was a great man.In many ways, Terror's Advocate leaves more questions than it answers, especially with respect to the attorney's self-imposed 8-year exile, during which he was clearly doing more than just hiding from friends. He also appears to boldly lie to the camera when asked point blank about his connections to Carlos and some of the others (Pol Pot and his people deny Verges was ever even in Cambodia) and thus it becomes difficult to know when to believe him and when not to. It is also clear Verges hubris was ever increasing, as when he takes the Barbie case and faces an army of 40 lawyers for the prosecution (he insinuates that each is only equal to 1/40th of him).The DVD features a time line as a bonus feature. It is definitely worth looking at as it fills in some blanks and adds a little context to the accounts of the interviews.

Barbet Schroeder's portrait of French attorney Jacques Vergès. You've seen him defending people like Klaus Barbie, Carlos the Jackal, Pol Pot as well as other dictators and terrorists.This is a complex story of a complex man and it essentially tells the tale of the man from World War 2 until today. (And even at 140 minutes the film leaves a great deal out). Here is man of his time, who met and defended with many of the famous and infamous people of the last fifty years. He seems to be a man who generally believes in the right of the oppressed to stand up to their oppressors and to have some one to stand up for them. However this is not just the story of a man who fights for the oppressed but it is also the story of a man entangled in things that will cause many to question just how slick a guy is Verges. Many of the terrorists and dictators he defends are in fact his friends, and he is not doing it for the love of cause but also for the love of the finer things.I liked the film a great deal. To be certain I was lost as to bits of the history and who some people were, but at the same time the film isn't about the history, so much as Verges moving through it. This is the story of the man, his causes and to some degree his women. What exactly are we to make of Verges? I don't know, but I sure do think that he and his life make for a compelling tale. I loved that my idea of what Verges is changed. I loved that I was completely confused at the end as to what I thought, confused in a way that only a film that forces you to think can do. In the end I don't know what I think of Verges, and I love that I will have to sit and reflect on what transpired on screen and in the man's life for a good long while.Certainly one of the better feature length theatrical documentaries to come down the pike in a while.See it...probably more than once. See it and then discuss it, it will get the gray cells of your brain working.8 out of 10.