Reseñas de la crítica

What makes the film so satisfying, though, is the appreciable craft with which the material is organised and presented, filtered through a post-1967 historical overview that allows the interviewees to reflect on the shifting demands of each new political and diplomatic era, and intercut with archive footage reflecting the transformation of the imagery of conflict across the decades.

Fascinating testimonies by group of men freshly sprung from the shadows of government subterfuge... Makes for truly bracing viewing.

Those merely interested in hearing stories about the country's often morally dubious struggle to combat terrorism will likely be fascinated—though the same information could be presented in considerably greater depth, and much better contextualized, in the pages of a book. If you're looking for an example of the art of filmmaking, however, The Gatekeepers has little to offer, operating strictly as a standard-issue mix of talking-head interviews and archival footage.

Ranging from still-bulky militant types to central-casting Jewish grandfathers, all of the interviewees cut striking camera presences as they grapple with their successes and failures. "When you retire, you become a bit of a leftist," says 1988–94 bureau chief Yaakov Peri. There's a sense of perspective here missing from current headlines.

Ultimately the movie feels evasive, and its flashy, digitally animated re-creations of military surveillance footage unpleasantly evoke the Call of Duty video games.

You'll be arguing with your friends about the ethics of secrecy and defense for hours; that's what makes these exit interviews so essential. They come late to the spy game, but are welcome regardless.

Moreh fleshes out their testimony with archival material, digital renderings, and footage from bombing operations, which suggest a God's-eye perspective. The result is a bone-tired open letter that refrains from explicitly excusing past deeds but does advocate for a new path in the future.

Moreh isn't the visualist that [Errol] Morris is, but he does a fair job of informing and engaging the eye in-between his talking-head clips.

Mesmerizingly cinematic and politically complex, this documentary jaw-dropper movie explores, with depth and nail-biting intensity, Israel's history, present and future through the eyes of six former heads of the internal security agency Shin Bet.

Even when the so-called Gatekeepers offer up damning testimony against their organization, there's no real threat that they'll ever be held accountable for it. Rather, their willful participation in this documentary seems to function as a form of tacit forgiveness, rendering all the un-redacted revelations contained within doubly disquieting.

Moreh pulls back, as if he scared himself, to return to the former narrative of danger from Palestinians and Arabs, but the cat's out of the bag: Now we know. It's a chilling history lesson and one I won't soon forget.

Politically, the film clearly aligns itself with the Israeli left, though the disarmingly frank (and sometimes truly surprising) statements from its subjects does raise the problematic issue of it serving as a cheaply purchased post-facto atonement/justification for careers premised on moral questionability. Where The Gatekeepers takes on a more provocative tone, however, is in its pointed attempt to draw parallels between Shin Bet and Nazi Germany.