Larson (who goes by “Lars”) and Zarif are invented characters, played by actor George Calil and actor/producer Wali Razaqi, respectively. They are part of Johnston’s actual five-man crew, which skillfully uses the roleplay to gain access to warlords, bounty hunters, and Northern Alliance members who believe they are being interviewed for a genuine documentary.

If only they were. The impassioned disputes that erupt at the mere mention of Osama bin Laden, the disturbingly jaded views of American motivations held by our supposed allies among the Afghans and the palpable danger of an arms dealer’s shed after dark are all powerfully unsettling. The inability to determine the loyalties of men standing on barren hillsides with rifles is eerily evocative of the American predicament in Vietnam. Watching the crew careen through Kabul amid real machine gun fire at least equals, and perhaps eclipses, the thrill of elaborately staged action.

But the film’s fictional portions are as poor as these moments are brilliant. The script and acting conspire to deny the Larsen character any credibility. His voiceover commentary is both gratingly juvenile—“a real bounty hunter”—and absurdly hard-boiled—“what might just be our VIP pass into the shitstorm?”. He has the mentality and combat skills of a commando, but the profession and body art of a hipster. Larson’s real physical courage is entirely at odds with his recurring self-conscious pose, pensively staring out from a Jeep while exaggeratedly drawing on a cigarette.

Although Razaqi, who essentially plays himself as a capable guide and translator named Wali returning to Afghanistan from America, is somewhat better, he finds himself at the center of a series of contrived scenarios. The fictional Wali’s sudden declaration that the 9/11 attacks are attributable to American foreign policy choices is a perfunctory nod to political debate. Later, his decision to voice his skittishness in a meeting with hostile arms dealers is implausibly foolish.

Most distressingly, the foibles in the fiction of September Tapes prompt a host of all too easily answered questions that distract from the substantive reflection that the film would otherwise promote. The viewer asks himself: Why does Lars have a trace of a British accent? Because Calil is English. Why do Lars and Wali, formally introduced at the start of the film, immediately act as if they have known each other for some time? Because Calil and Razaqi have. Would Lars be better off without his iPod during machine gun skirmishes with the Taliban? Yes, despite the iPod’s role in the film’s off-color quasi-twist ending.

The scripted story’s sheer ridiculousness forces these and other oddities to the forefront. Time would be better spent contemplating the American role in the disarray that Johnston so effectively captures in the non-fiction filming at the movie’s core.

Johnston aims to debunk the myths of the Afghani situation—Lars asks accusatorily, “Where’s the US military? Where’s CNN?”—and seems to want to extract the truth of U.S. foreign policy from its many layers of spin. So he should probably know better: Fictionalization obscures meaning, marginalizing from the public consciousness what deserves a place at the forefront. The stateside studio is the place for genre experimentation; original footage of a war zone’s unseen chaos speaks for itself. (DL)

—Happening was compiled by Steven N. Jacobs, Emily M. Kaplan, Doug Lieb, Alexandra B. Moss, Ben B. Chung, Julie S. Greenberg, Elan A. Greenwald, Jayme J. Herschkopf, Sarah L. Solorzano and Scoop A. Wasserstein.