OPINION | REVIEW: 'The Dissident'

If you want an understanding of what the late Washington Post columnist Jamal Khashoggi had to say and why his observations were essential, check out Rick Rowley's powerful Showtime documentary "Kingdom of Silence." His work was so important and his loss so tragic that no single film can encapsulate him.

Bryan Fogel's "The Dissident" presents Khashoggi as part of a larger movement against the abuses of the Saudi royal family and the nation's de facto ruler Mohammed Bin Salman (aka MBS). Fogel features jaw-dropping interviews with Turkish officials who documented Khashoggi's grisly murder at the Saudi consulate in Istanbul.

Fogel (an Oscar-winner for "Icarus") includes transcripts of the murder and security camera footage, so there's little doubt that MBS and his subordinates were involved.

If the previous movie did a better job of recounting how Khashoggi's views changed and the content of his journalism, Fogel concentrates on why Khashoggi was a threat to the status quo in the kingdom and the extent MBS and his minions would go to silence him.

Most of "The Dissident" follows Canadian-based exile Omar Abdulaziz, whom Khashoggi mentored. The younger man found ingenious ways to get around the royal family's repressive grip on the internet. This enabled Khashoggi's Tweets, columns and other social media posts to rise above government-sponsored bots.

Two years later, Abdulaziz is still obviously distraught about losing him and faces considerable danger, too. The authorities are holding a relative back home, and MBS is intent on pursuing other targets than Abdulaziz and Khashoggi.

Because Amazon billionaire Jeff Bezos publishes the Washington Post, Saudis have hacked into his phones and passed on information about his extramarital affair to The National Enquirer. Bezos pre-emptively revealed the affair and the blackmail, but it is terrifying that even someone with his resources is vulnerable to this sort of hack.

The film also includes extensive footage of Khashoggi's fiancée Hatice Cengiz, who has diligently kept his memory alive. If MBS, who has since earned the nickname of "Mr. Bone Saw," thought that destroying the journalist's remains would stop his message, he is mistaken.

The Crown Prince still has a great deal of power, but people like Abdulaziz have blunted MBS's charm offensive. It's hard for the Crown Prince to pose as a reformer as the corpses keep piling up.

While Khashoggi's murder is depraved in itself, "The Dissident" does more than serve as a cinematic version of grand guignol. Without denying the cost that Abdulaziz and Khashoggi have paid, it demonstrates how vital their resistance has been for the rest of the world as well as the Middle East.

Khashoggi, whom MBS would certainly dismiss as "fake news," tragically proved his own assertions about why Arab governments need the same checks and balances on power that exist in North America and Europe. In some ways, he's more threatening to power now that he's no longer alive. "The Dissident" ably recounts that his views and what he symbolized won't be going away any time soon.

Prince Mohammad Bin Salman and journalist Jamal Khashoggi, who, the prince has admitted, was killed “under [his] watch” by Saudi government employees in 2018.