When I first heard about this, I thought it was going to be a documentary, because I wouldn't have expected Jon Stewart to tackle a biographical feature. There's a lot of things wrong with this movie. For example, when I envision detainment in an Iranian prison, this is certainly not the way I'd imagine it. Too soft. My portrayal of the treatment of alleged spies in Islamic countries would probably be much worse. He was detained for almost 4 months, which in terms of sentencing, and *doing time* in general isn't considered a real sentence. The only scene which sort of seemed authentic is when the *torturer* threatened to shoot Gael, but it would've been better if he'd done the same thing for a week and not just once.All in all, it's a nice little story. After reading up on Maziar Barhadi, I'm not quite sure what to think. Who knows if someone's really a spy or not? He could've just as easily been a spy, still. This movie is very light, romanticized, liberal propaganda. I'm giving this movie a 4.8/10 just because it's low budget. Sort of.

Decent debut from Jon Stewart.The true story of Maziar Bahari, an Iran-Canadian Newsweek journalist who went back to Iran in 2009 to cover the national elections. Once the despot Mahmoud Ahmadinejad, the incumbent, wins the Presidency, protests breaks out. After filming and reporting on the election and protests, Bahari is arrested, imprisoned and tortured.The first film, as director, for Jon Stewart, of The Daily Show fame. He also wrote the screenplay, adapted from Bahari's book "Then they came for me". A good place for Stewart to start as he knows Bahari well and had interviewed him many times on The Daily Show. Plus, Bahari's light-hearted interview with Jason Jones on The Daily Show is used against him during his arrest.An interesting story, though doesn't really cover any new ground regarding freedom and how despots treat their people. Not a very compelling story, for this reason. Stewart pretty much covers the story in linear, blow-by-blow fashion, with the only departure from this being that the first scene is Bahari's arrest, and then we go back in time to see what lead to it.Solid work from Gael Garcia Bernal in the lead role. Supporting cast are fine too.A good enough start from Jon Stewart. He had a story he wanted to tell, and he told it. With experience and confidence he'll get better at telling stories in movie form.

Given the importance of a free press and the direction of the much- loved John Stewart, you just wanted this movie to be more entertaining or, at least, thought-provoking. Unfortunately, it produces both in somewhat limited quantities. Stewart, who clearly does snark on an Olympic-level does excel here at showing the ridiculousness of the Iranian charges against the Time reporter they imprison, beat and torture. He shows the Mahmoud Ahmadinejad regime to be petty, out-of-touch and trying to stay in power by fighting the previous overthrow of the Iranian government which did involve the involvement of the West to install the former Shah of Iran. Of course, covert CIA operations have long since been replaced by the coordinated actions of ground-level young people using Twitter and the deep web to coordinate. Stewart demonstrates these realities well and provides a realistic portrayal of the tactics used by these particular torturers (which resemble those used by torturers through history and geography). The movie just feels more like reportage than drama and the reporters eventual release isn't quite the end of "Shawshank Redemption". In short, still worth seeing if you enjoyed "Syriana" or a have a particular interest in global politics or history.

Very captivating movie based on a true story about a journalist falsely imprisoned for espionage. The movie reflects what kind of danger journalists are exposed to in some countries. It's important that we see movies like this one to understand that free press isn't allowed everywhere. Thousand of journalists are facing unjustified jail time just because they want to show us what's happening somewhere else. Not that I am a big believer of everything they say on television, on the contrary I believe that we are brainwashed by the media, especially in the USA. But this movie is nicely done and shows you that being a journalist in risk full countries is in fact a dangerous profession. I thought it was a good movie with good actors. Certainly worth seeing.