Documentarians Alex Gibney and Eugene Jarecki's BBC adaptation of Christopher Hitchens' book The Trial Of Henry Kissinger suffers from excessive closeness to the source material. Early in the film, Alexander Haig refers to Hitchens as "a sewer-pipe sucker," and Kissinger himself makes reference to the muckraking British journalist's controversial articles on Mother Teresa, Jacqueline Kennedy Onassis, and the Holocaust. But The Trials Of Henry Kissinger largely ignores that larger picture, zeroing in on Hitchens' claims rather than the atmosphere surrounding their publication. Granted, Hitchens' reportage on Kissinger is compelling. Ostensibly, the author (and, by proxy, the filmmakers) builds a meticulous case that the former U.S. National Security Advisor and Secretary Of State deserves to be tried and convicted as a war criminal for his part in genocides in Vietnam, Cambodia, East Timor, and Chile. Most of The Trials Of Henry Kissinger relates Kissinger's biography: A refugee from Nazi Germany, he rose to prominence in American politics thanks to his ruthless strategies of setting nations against each other in the name of improving the U.S. position on the world stage. The film accuses Kissinger of double-crossing the Johnson administration by plotting to keep the Vietnam conflict alive long enough to foster public discontent, thereby laying the groundwork for Richard Nixon's election. In return, allegedly, Kissinger received the cabinet posts though which he continued to broker human lives in exchange for securing power for his adopted country (and, by extension, himself). More than one interviewee in The Trials Of Henry Kissinger argues that the subject's cultivation of public celebrity in the '70s served intentionally to disguise his bloody political dealings, and that, in a way, the celebrity actually fueled Kissinger's power. That provocative idea marks one of the film's few moments of real insight. One of the others comes toward the end, when diplomat Daniel Davidson says, "The idea of Kissinger as a war criminal is very dangerous," offering a brief promise that Gibney and Jarecki will explore the ramifications of prosecuting world leaders for crimes against humanity—ramifications that include the events of Sept. 11 and their aftermath. (Ironically, as the documentary points out, the Chilean coup in which Kissinger may have had a hand took place on Sept. 11, 1973.) But on the whole, the filmmakers hold too much to the text, and too often employ the smugly knowing, self-righteous tone typical of British telejournalism. As a punchy bit of political history, The Trials Of Henry Kissinger has value, but though it's crisply edited and artfully shot (on video), the book version reads just as well.