Applying his customary formula of exposing a controversial political injustice within a slick thriller framework, Costa-Gavras sets his script for Mon Colonel during the Algerian struggle for independence, notorious for France's clandestine torture of suspected terrorists. Starting in the present with an uninvolving whodunit about the assassination of an authoritarian colonel, the film moves to extensive and more compelling flashbacks that etch out the escalating horror in 1956 as the imperious colonel bends a young adjutant to his will, forcing him to devise legal angles to justify his methods of fighting "the world war against communism and terrorism." Olivier Gourmet, longtime collaborator of Belgium's Dardenne brothers (who co-produced here), lost over 50 pounds to play this complex but volatile warrior who puts the command in commanding officer, while the tightly clenched Robinson Stévenin suffers as his conflicted protégé and the eightysomething Charles Aznavour springs an effective 11th-hour surprise. Handsomely shot in the Atlas mountains near Constantine, this directorial debut of Laurent Herbiet (assistant on Resnais's last two films) looks elegant and certainly provokes plentiful parallels to today's post-Abu Ghraib world, including an indictment of craven politicians who authorize emergency anti-terrorist laws in a purported mission to "civilize" the Arab world, though arguably America's quagmire stems as much from its inexorable juggernaut of a war machine.  Robert Keser