User Reviews

As "Escape From Kabul" (2022 release; 76 min) opens, then-President Trump announces in February, 2020 that the US will withdraw from Afghanistan. Newly elected President Biden sets a deadline of August 31, 2021. When the Taliban unexpectedly captures Kabul on August 15, 2021, it sets into motion a humanitarian drama and catastrophe, as hundreds of thousands of Afghan citizens descend onto the Kabul airport in a desperate attempt to flee the country and the Taliban. At this point we are less than 10 min into the movie.

Couple of comments: this is the latest documentary from director Jamie Roberts, on the heels of last year's excellent "Four Hours At the Capitol". Here Roberts reconstructs the second half of August, 2021. If you think that you know what went down from remembering a couple of clips of the evening news, you really DON'T know. This documentary unearths never before seen footage from a variety of sources, including from the US Marines, the Taliban and elsewhere. Seeing this harrowing and shocking footage will begin to give you an idea what these 2 weeks in August were: the very essence of a humanitarian catastrophe, driven by sheer desperation and fear. Yes, the Taliban leaders are interviewed, smug about defeating the Americans, but never asking themselves why it is that seemingly a vast majority of the Afghan population would rather flee if given the chance than live under Taliban rule. Last but not least: a sincere kudos to everyone, from the Marines to the US Air Force, who was able to airlift a reported 124,000 people under impossible circumstances, the largest airlift operation in US modern history. Bottom line: this is one of the best movies of 2022, period.

"Escape From Kabul" premiered a few days ago on HBO Max. I found it to be a deeply moving and shocking viewing experience. Frankly it should be required viewing for all HS and college students alike. Of course don't just take my words for it. If you have any interest in US history and geopolitics, I'd readily suggest you check this out, and draw your own conclusion.

Greetings again from the darkness. We watched it play out on television, seemingly getting worse and more tragic and more convoluted by the day. It was painful to watch the United States evacuation of Afghanistan, and now, Jamie Roberts documents what actually happened with previously unseen archival footage supplemented with remarkably candid personal interviews.

The war was in its 18th year when, in 2020, President Trump announced we would be ending the war and bringing our folks home. It was President Biden who gave the final deadline for evacuation by August 2021. Of course, most of us doubted it could happen that swiftly, and given what unfolded, maybe it shouldn't have.

Previously unseen footage is remarkable, and certainly provides a true sense of what was happening at the time and how our undermanned military faced numerous obstacles - some dangerous, others humanitarian - and performed admirably given the circumstance. The insight from the Marines who were there is especially impactful, and their recollections cut to the quick. Their mission was to evacuate US citizens and "at risk" Afghans who had been helpful to the cause, but we learn the first couple of days were spent evacuating "VIPs" ... always a sign of political motivation.

It was literally day 2 (August 15) when the Taliban seized control of Kabul, causing desperation and fear and chaos. The footage is vivid in showing what was happening, and how confusion permeated every action. It's stunning to watch as Taliban leaders are interviewed and laugh at the US for such a botched plan after a two-decade war. Interviews with some Afghan citizens who made it out display the emotions of those driven from the homes under extreme stress. And those Marines offer the most direct feedback for the operation and the no-win decisions they faced when deciding who could leave.

We have all seen the newscast images of those desperately clinging the airplanes, but what about the canal of sewage many spent days wading in, hoping for a chance to leave? The "deal" struck with the Taliban to allow evacuations is a bit confusing to us, but even more so to the Marines stationed at the time. Despite 124,000 people being evacuated and most of the military equipment destroyed prior to the last plane filled with Marines, it's still sickening to see the Taliban immediately shift into victory celebration mode. We know where this is headed, and so do those who remained.

An HBO documentary premiering on September 21, 2022.

This movie is not your ordinary Hollywood flick. It has a great and deep message. This movie has a foundation and just kept on being built on from their and that foundation is hope. This was a great movie. The whole writing of the script and story which was almost accurate was very good, the way the documentary was made it was brilliant and I believe the credit goes to everyone involved but specially The Production and The Producers which made so much effort for collecting and analysing the data.

AND Special thanks to *Z. A* this was best mainly because of you, you are the best, Keep it uppp.

After Trump signed 2020 treaty with Taliban, the State Department had more than a year to plan evacuation. Did Trump's decimation of the 'Deep State' affect State Dept & Pentagon plans?

Biden had 7 months to evacuate Americans & Afghan allies too whilst recovering economy from pandemic.

I recently rewatched Ken Burns 'The Vietnam War' evacuation of Saigon. America would stall that evacuation too, wanting to appear strong for Vietnam Republic.. The US Ambassador didn't allow evacuations until last days.

Both corrupt government allies in Vietnam & Afghanistan had part in poor withdrawal.

Yes we are thankful and proud of our volunteer veterans, am sorry for the women and children that will suffer the most under Taliban.

Bush should have been prosecuted for war crimes. How could withdrawal from Kabul be more FUBAR than the 20 yrs of graft in that country, just like Vietnam.

Its a good doc... worth watching... but slight BS at the end... it does not state that days later the airport was open again and 30 days later it was working better than under US control... it makes it seem this was all justified.. a few comments about the Tali being bad... the truth is it was all unnecessary, panic. Just mad bad and sad. It shows the US in truth as brave, trying hard and human.. but also ignorant fearful and badly managed.. they dont seem to understand what is happening & yet its a mess they caused.. the human side is horrific and in fact just touches the tip of the reality.... this is a good access point.. but further education would be required..... the US is at times at its best; kind, Human and proffessional.. but mostly at its worse. The real victims on show here were the the poor people in the queues of death and those Marines that witnessed it.

Afghanistan, a place, a land, a country, which perhaps will never remain under the control of anyone, as in the past most likely in the future too.

This land has seen bloodshed more then any place in the world. Kabul today is there's, tomorrow someone else. The fight, the battles will go on, sadly.

Taliban, it was expected that they perhaps this time would be different then the ones in 90's, some might are, but the majority of these people are illiterate and not in knowledge of modern or Islamic teachings. They were filled with hate, they were taught all inhumane act(s) they can carry out and there is only principle to rule is through fear.

There are many stories, in these last days, especially, not covered in this documentary. How the top leadership fled through the same airport carrying billions. How the so called trained Afghan forces just fell like a house of cards. It shows that the American achieved nothing but failure in the last 20 years.

There were many other airlines, who out of their heroics help fleeing people out of Kabul, the documentary remains untouched over that part. Though it has shown some events and it will touch you.

Freedom always has a price. Always will have a price.

Interesting. Afghanistan is in part of the world that is never at peace. It is sad armies go there to die. But this doesn't touch on is the incredible ineptness of our political leadership. It is almost like they set up our military to fail. They put them in an untenable situation, with limited resources, and effective rules of engagement driven by politics not by war time necessity. And then the dying starts both military and civilian. This gave a lot of latitude the piece of garbage Taliban. Then again it is HBO with a left-leaning business model. Make no mistake, the Taliban and Isis are monsters of evil. That is exactly why all of those people, thousands upon thousands were trying to escape the country. This is a clear example of how these places will remain Third World countries in a time of unprecedented modern technology everywhere. Tough situation. I could care less about the Taliban, but I feel so bad for the Marines who had to deal with this untenable situation. And our politicians stood back and did nothing.

I actually found this to be an extremely numbed down depiction of events.... but considering its on liberal leftist HBO im not suprised.

What about all the babies that ended up being crowd floated into razor wire? What about the 4 busloads of refugees that had already been vetted by American Volunteers that were there trying to rescue our allies that a Marine Lt Col turned away? 4 bus loads of families, already in the gates and he sent them out to the Tali!

Left out that it was a State Department operation

Left out that the Biden Administration is directly responsible for the chaos which could have been avoided.

Tim Kennedy's account of these events portays a much darker and accurate first hand story that went on there. He says it was The Taliban that were spraying bullets into crowds to do crowd control, all day every day, why didnt you mention that!?!? But you mentioned every rubber bullet the Marines fired.... Biased Much?!?!

Very honest account of how things unfolded when the US left Afghanistan. You can see the desperation of the people trying to flee, many times costing them their life. The conditions outside the gates were horrific. The summit of all that was the blast from a suicide bomber or ied that killed 13 US personnel and 170 afghans that basically ended all entering activities at the gates. A caveat of this documentary is that it falls short because it doesn't show anything about the retaliatory attack from the US government via drone to a NGO vehicle filled with children and water that had nothing to do with ISIS. That should be included too because it was directly related to the incidents shown in this film.

This is an interesting look into the chaos around the US withdrawal from Afghanistan. I did like hearing different perspectives from US soldiers, Afghan civilians, and the Taliban themselves. It's always better to get first hand accounts than whatever gets filtered out in the news media.

However, I just can't give praise to this documentary because they completely overlook the culprit of this whole mess. All of this could have easily been avoided with better planning from the Biden administration. We'll probably never know the number of civilians, including children, who were killed in this sloppy, disorderly evacuation. How many allies and US civilians were left behind on their own to try and make it out alive?

It really shouldn't matter how you feel about politics to see where to place the blame. It is a complex issue involving a lot of different players, but once we decided to leave, it seems there was no forethought put into how to get out safely, and this falls directly to the US government, specifically the Biden administration.