HBO comes to Kenya and does a better documentary film about Westgate than any Kenyan Media house. "Terror at the Mall" is a masterpiece. First they assemble all the CCTV footage from all the cameras located in and out of the building. Then they track down survivors from the footage and interview about a dozen coherent survivors. After that they piece together the stories, match the stories with the CCTV footage and get two or more survivors to narrate different segments of a particular story. In classic American fashion, the heroes stand out, one especially, Abdul Haji, is a delight to watch. He slides across the floor like a pro and waves two fingers at the target like you see 'em do in the movies. Yet he is only wearing a casual shirt and leading a team of plain-clothed cops who in their words, "could not wait any longer outside for reinforcements or the recce squad." Talking of the Recce squad, they had those cowards cornered before the military invaded the building and shot three of the elite cops. And in the scene where one of the elite men exiting the building carrying a wounded colleague exclaims, "f**k them!!" referring to the KDF soldiers, you can almost agree with him. Because on their own, the first responders rescued more people than the KDF who will best be remembered for looting the shops and throwing a bomb on the building. Yes, there's CCTV footage of a bomb hitting the building from the inside - enough of those lies about terrorists burning mattresses. But Haji is not the only hero. At the beginning the Asian journalist who provided most of the footage that was not retrieved from the CCTV systems explained how he got to the scene. "I got a call from a friend who told me not to go to Westgate, there's a robbery and they've wounded people, so I grabbed the camera and drove down there." The journalist wore a mask and followed the cops into the building. That's perhaps the only funny bit in the documentary. The rest is a gripping, heart-wrenching affair!

An entire documentary of footage from the event is hard to come by. I have a hard time watching anything without doing something while I watch and I watched this in its entirety without taking my eyes off the screen. It was in part morbid fascination but mainly I was just enthralled and caught up in what was happening. There were a lot of very brave people in that mall and I hope all of them have recovered from whatever wounds, physical or mental, they received.

And the Kenyan army in 2014? Absolutely useless.

Chilling HBO documentary covering the upmarket Westgate shopping mall shooting in Nairobi, Kenya. Mostly pieced together by surveillance footage (and even some cellphone video),leaving the viewer to get as up close and personal as a retelling account can get. The film lets the horror unfold without pulling any punches, an approach that makes this documentary recommended only for the strong stomached viewer. TERROR AT THE MALL is an overall commendable piece for highlighting the bravery of the civilians, and also making its focus on the victims as opposed to the shooters.

***½ (out of four)