The Dissident

 3/4

Rated PG-13 for Disturbing/Violent Material

It was a crime that shocked the world.

Jamal Khashoggi, a Saudi dissident living in the US and working for The Washington Post, entered into the Saudi consulate in Turkey to obtain paperwork so he could marry his new fiancee.  He never left.  Instead, he was attacked, murdered and dismembered by fifteen assassins overseen by Mohammed bin Salman.

This we know.  What "The Dissident," a riveting documentary by Academy Award-winning filmmaker Bryan Fogel, does is explain who Khashoggi was, how he earned the ire of MBS, and how it was pulled off.  "The Dissident" is part true crime story, part political thriller, and part advocacy piece.  It may not be the most balanced mixture of those genres, but there's no denying that this is as fascinating as it is horrifying.

At first glance, Jamal Khashoggi may seem like the last possible journalist to be targeted by his own government.  He was one of the elites.  He had close relationships with the House of Saud, and while his job was mainly to act as PR for the Royal Family, Khashoggi pushed his limits as far as he could.  That didn't sit well with MBS, the intensely ambitious and favored son of the king.  Under the guise of progressive reform and rooting out corruption, MBS got rid of anyone standing in his way for sole rule of the throne.  Khashoggi realized this and called him out on it.  For that, he had to leave his family behind and flee for his life.  In the US and Canada, he was free to criticize MBS all he wanted, but his nemesis had his own way of fighting back.

One thing that the film does is put this story into a wider context.  Fogel takes care to explain how things work in the Kingdom of Saudi Arabia, how Khashoggi was able to become one of the most respected journalists and how MBS was able to eliminate the competition without anyone realizing it.  Also touched on is how both MBS and Khashoggi were both able to weaponize Twitter for their own ends.  It became a cyber war between the former's crackdown on dissent and the latter's advocacy for free speech.  The House of Saud uses a program called Pegasus 2 that gives them complete access to a person's smartphone.  It's a terrifying revelation.

Like all good crime documentaries, Fogel takes us inside the crime.  We know what happened and how it went down.  There is no video evidence of the crime, but we are shown transcripts of what was said during the murder.  That it took place in the conference room leaves little doubt that MBS observed it.  It's disturbing stuff.

There are two elements that are also worth mentioning.  One involves another Saudi dissident, Omar Abdulaziz.  He also ended up on MBS's bad side and fled to Canada.  Through him, we see the lengths that the Saudi government will go to crack down on any criticism.  We feel his pain.  The other is the quiet strength and private mourning of Khashoggi's fiancee, Hatice Cengiz.  Her dignity and quiet strength provide the movie's heart.

After all the twists and turns, outrage and horror, we are left with the grim fatalism that MBS's ploy worked.  He faced no punishment.  There were no government sanctions.  Investors in his economic revival only backed off for a year.  But this documentary keeps us from forgetting his crime, and what he murdered Khashoggi for doing.

Note: "The Dissident" had trouble finding a distributor.  It wasn't for lack of quality or interest, but economic.  Companies like Amazon and Netflix were concerned about being shut out of the Saudi Arabian market and refused to carry it.  They ought to be ashamed of themselves.  Particularly Jeff Bezos, who apparently thinks that the murder of a journalist who works for him and the hacking of his phone is acceptable as long as it doesn't hurt his bottom line.