Movie Review: The War Within

Director Joseph Castelo’s "The War Within" is an honest attempt at
shedding light on why terrorists do what they do.. This 90-minute
film is about Hasssan (played by Ayad Akhtar), a native Pakistani who has been educated in the best universities abroad, who speaks several languages fluently and who is living his life just like the rest of us. Hassan is dealing with problems like all of us are, problems dealing with what film to watch when, what to eat where, who to meet why. Living as we are, in perilous times, many of us unfortunately undergo bias and irrelevant suspicion. Similarly, Hassan, during his stay in Paris, faces malicious bias one day, when he is picked up as a potential suspect while going to meet a friend. We think he will be released soon having endured some humiliation, as is the usual case. However our worst fears are confirmed as we watch two undercover cops suffocating him with a plastic bag and injecting him with a drug. Then, quietly and efficiently, Hassan is transported from the sidewalk café in Paris to the torture chamber in Karachi. And this is where
all similarities end between him and us.

Over a span of three years, Hassan is brutally tortured and blackmailed into admitting that he is involved in terrorist activities. And it is only when he is lying on the floor covered in blood and scarred with whiplashes, both mentally and physically broken, that evil calls to him in the form of a terrorist ringleader.

Infuriated with the cruelty bestowed upon him for no reason other than his religion, Hassan receives the devil’s calling with both palms open. With the help of his leader, Khaled, Hassan manages to be smuggled into New York via a ship container. In order to ward off suspicion, he asks his childhood friend, Sayeed, to take him in for some time. It is only when Sayeed and his wife warmly embrace Hassan that we manage to catch a glimmer of Hassan’s sensitive side again.

Over the next few days, Hassan’s sensitivity emerges on many occasions, when reminiscing with Sayeed about climbing tree tops in Pakistan, when showing affection to Duria, Sayeed’s sister, when teaching Sayeed’s son how to alleviate other people’s pain and suffering. During those moments we forget that Hassan has any intention to harm, because Hassan himself forgets this. But then the beast within him re-emerges and he goes back to hatching plans to blow up Grand Central, to chanting death to America, to declare “jihad” on all non-Muslims. Preempting the audience’s unasked question of what exactly is jihad, the film shows two depictions: in one a sleazy terrorist ringleader is exploiting a young Muslim’s faith by telling him the path to paradise can only be reached by shedding innocent blood, in another an Imam is delivering a sermon emphasizing that “Jihad is the struggle of everyday life.” It is up to each individual to choose.

Over the course of the film, we follow Hassan through love and hate, through good and evil, through compassion and revenge until we realize the turmoil he wants to create in others has manifested itself inside
him.

Khaled brainwashes him with talks on purity and sanctity, promises of paradise, and of closeness with God through “jihad.” Using the words of God to his advantage, he preaches about sanctity while indulging in promiscuity. He exploits Hassan’s passion and fervor towards death and destruction. He clothes Hassan with bombs and then sits back to watch the killing unfold. Hassan dies but Khaled lives on to exploit yet another tortured soul in some other part of the world.

After watching this film, we can comprehend that suicide bombers are not born suicide bombers. They yearn to lead lives like the rest of us but are forced to seek solace with extremists due to their dismal circumstances. As these extremists become their saviors, the victims become the killers, and terror comes full circle.