SnoopyStyle Jacques Vergès has been the defense attorney for members of the Khmer Rouge, Algerian FLN, Palestinian PFLP, and other terrorists. It starts with him as a French foot soldier. As a young lawyer, he's contacted by the Algierian resistance and he became their sympathetic disruptive famous lawyer. Using footage from "The Battle of Algiers", it tries to explain the struggle. It's mostly his friends, clients and supporters in this movie.The movie starts with him defending Khmer Rouge leaders and that's really annoying. This is very much an one-sided monologue. It's somewhat interesting to follow his life and career but he's a fanatic. He's not some ACLU lawyer looking to ensure rights of the condemned. This guy has no objectivity or sympathy other than for his clients. It feels like the movie is preaching to the choir. There is also an arrogance to the man that is off-putting. I don't know why he won't reveal where he was for those years. He's there smoking his cigar and I'm sure the documentarians must have asked. It's part of his superiority complex. It's not until the Nazi connections that the movie gets interesting but that takes over an hour to get there. However the movie fails to connect all the dots. This documentary fails to answer some very basic questions about who this guy is and where he comes from. The investigation is incomplete. Then there is the style of the documentary. It is non-stop talking heads make it rather boring. It's like trying to cobble together a narrative with each witness giving one or two sentences. Most docs use a narrator to direct and drive the discussion. This one needs something more than talking heads talking. This feels like a rambling run-on sentence.

kerangador Verges is in love with his own hate. He sees hypocrisy everywhere and like a spoiled brat wants to tear everything done. And so he supports dictators and mass murderers in the the name of justice.He also asserts that the Cambodian genocide under his friend Pol Pot did not happen and blames the Americans for most of the damage.The fact that over one quarter of Cambodia's population perished under Pol Pot's rule - the fact that Pol Pot's insane policies drove the population to utter starvation - the fact that Pol Pot's regime actively conducted mass imprisonment, torture and murder of hundreds of thousands of its own people - including children - does not bother Verges who still admires Pol Pot.This film does not press Verges on such hard questions. Its an utter waste of time and only serves as a limelight for his overwhelming ego.

lreynaert This movie gives an astonishingly revealing picture of the outspoken French lawyer Jacques Vergès, who defended such controversial figures as the terrorist Carlos, the Nazi criminal Klaus Barbie or a member of the Algerian resistance against French rule, Djamila Bouhireb. Jacques Vergès even confirms that he would have defended Adolf Hitler IF he pleaded guilty (George Steiner did it in his formidable book 'In Bluebeard's Castle').The movie reveals also the existence of a right-wing - religious financial network which provides judicial help for former fascists, like Nazi criminals. However, Barbet Schroeder could not uncover the exact nature of Jacques Vergès's pro-Palestinian actions or his support of the Red Khmer regime (on which he gives here, again controversially, a more or less positive comment) during the years of his life when he acted 'behind the scenes'.This movie is a fascinating portrait of an iconoclastic rebel with a formidable intelligence and a profound analyzing capacity of the dark regions of man's nature and the amoral or immoral motives behind his behavior. By incorporating this behavior in a global context of 'a world at war, a resistance to a colonial rule or a defense of minorities', he could (can) denounce all the parties involved or attack frontally the existing global world order and its alleged morality. A must see.

mikedaly-1 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.