Movie Review

Terror's Advocate (2007)

Reviewed by Lisa Schwarzbaum | Oct 10, 2007

Lisa Schwarzbaum

Lisa Schwarzbaum is a film critic for EW

Comments
Add your comment

EW's GRADE

B+

Details Limited Release: Oct 12, 2007; Rated: Unrated; Length: 132 Minutes; Genre: Documentary

$DISORDER IN THE COURT Yasser Arafat, seen in Terror\'s Advocate, the documentary about French lawyer Jacques Vergès$

Image credit: Genevieve Chauvel/Sygma/Corbis

DISORDER IN THE COURT Yasser Arafat, seen in Terror's Advocate, the documentary about French lawyer Jacques Vergès

The title Terror's Advocate is both a statement of fact and a worrisome understatement in a documentary as slippery as its subject. Jacques Vergès is a French lawyer (un avocet) who prides himself on having defended some of the world's Most Wanted, among them Nazi war criminal Klaus Barbie, Holocaust denier Roger Garaudy, and the terrorist known as Carlos the Jackal. What sort of a man can summon so much sympathy for the devil? Vergès, now in his 80s, just smiles mysteriously, maddeningly, while filmmaker Barbet Schroeder offers up a rogues' gallery of evildoers Vergès has known. B+

Originally posted Oct 10, 2007 Published in issue #959-960 Oct 19, 2007 Order article reprints

Comments
Add your comment

Add your comment

The rules: Keep it clean, and stay on the subject or we might delete your comment. If you see inappropriate language, e-mail us. An asterisk * indicates a required field.