Enron filmmaker focuses on U.S. torture

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After examining corruption at energy giant Enron, director Alex Gibney has turned his lens on what he calls the "corruption of American values" in a new film about U.S. torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.

"Taxi to the Dark Side," which had its premiere at New York's Tribeca Film Festival this weekend, examines the case of an Afghan taxi driver who was mistakenly detained and died after sustained beating by U.S. guards in December 2002.

From there, the film draws a picture of a pattern of abuse it says spread with a "nod and a wink" from the U.S. military base in Cuba to Bagram Air Base in Afghanistan and then to Iraq, notably to the Abu Ghraib prison near Baghdad.

Part of the problem, the film contends, is that there never were written orders authorising many of the abuses -- a situation that led to prosecution of lowly enlisted soldiers branded "bad apples" while senior officers remain untouched.

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Alex Gibney, writer and director of the Enron documentary "The Smartest Guys in the Room" stands in front of the marquee before the film's premiere in Houston, Texas, in this April 20, 2005 file photo. Gibney has now turned his lens on what he calls the "corruption of American values" in a new film about U.S. torture in Afghanistan, Iraq and Guantanamo Bay.