You know what safe means? For me, the perfect example of safe was an utterly ordinary errand. A few days back, I needed to pick up a few things from our grocery store.* As I usually did, I slid into the driver’s seat of my fantastically stylish Prius, put my music app on shuffle, and drove. I successfully made it to the store, got what I needed, and returned home. All without incident.

At no point was I concerned about my physical safety. Why would I be? I’m a straight, White male living in the United States. Road rage, mass shootings, carjackings and other crimes, these are all outliers in my lived experience. As an American, most of my life is safe, so I should consider that to be what “normal” life is, right?

Not so much. We Americans have had it too easy for too long. Relative national security, relatively low crime, and an economy that has been, up to now, relatively stable, means that we’re allowed to become complacent. We’ve never experienced anything like what Israel experienced during the October 7, 2023 attack on Israel led by Hamas. If you want to understand a sliver of what happened, and you should, you owe it to yourself to watch The Killing Roads, a documentary of fearsome power.

You likely know the broad strokes regarding October 7. You know early in the morning, over four thousand rockets were fired into Israel. After that, waves of terrorist fighters, from Hamas and others, spread into the country. Their aim was to sow as much chaos as humanly possible. To inspire terror, and at that, they succeeded handily.

Director and writer Igal Hecht understands that, as viewers, we already know all of the bloodless statistics. What we don’t know, not really, is how it all felt. His aim with this film is more visceral. Hecht zooms into what happened along the highways known as the Sha’ar HaNegev Junction, also known as Roads 232 and 34. Then, he interviews people who were there that morning and juxtaposes that with real footage from the attacks.

It’s all in service of dropping us into specific perspectives. Not of far away politicians or highly trained Israel Defense Force soldiers who have the training and weaponry to at least stand equal with a Hamas militant. Though some of those interviewed have professional experience. One is Moshe Weitzman, an ambulance driver with United Hatzalah. He shares scenes of roadside carnage, of people executed in their cars and of bodies lit on fire. Those are only the beginning of Weitzman’s horrors, as he was the first ambulance to arrive at the Nova Music Festival. For the people there, all they wanted was to listen to 1980s trance music, get hammered, maybe hook up with someone. But Weitzman discovers more than three hundred dead and multiple instances of rape. Hecht doesn’t spare us. We see the bodies of festival goers, real people. 

Another professional is Simcha Greiniman, with the volunteer humanitarian group ZAKA. His team collects bodies, clears houses, and removes vehicles to a secure location. Greiniman notes that roughly three hundred fifty cars were set on fire. There were two thousand vehicles in total, all considered to be an individual crime scene. Greiniman is a person of serious dedication and focus. At one point, he mentions that he hasn’t had time to grieve.

Where the film is even stronger are the interviews with ordinary people simply going about their day who came face to face with horror. All of them narrowly survived murder and all lost someone. Lee Sasi recounts her experience fleeing the festival, and hiding in a roadside bomb shelter. She watches her uncle die, sees many others die from the bullets fired and grenades tossed into the shelter. She remembers hearing the gleeful laughter from her attackers. 

We meet Daniela Gandi and her boyfriend Naor Levy, an up and coming DJ. We see her cellphone footage of terrorists firing at their car and of her playing dead, hoping they don’t discover her. We hear her talking to Naor, encouraging him as he slowly dies from multiple gunshot wounds. We see the ambulance dash cam footage of her rescued, six hours later.

There’s more. Hecht’s filmmaking is brilliant, and after being involved in the making of over fifty documentaries, you’d expect him to know a thing or two. He films segments at the precise spots where attacks took place. He utilizes footage from multiple sources and, with painstaking detail, is able to identify within that footage the destroyed cars and mauled bodies of specific people. He uses footage not just of bodies, but of murder, of cruelty. He weaves it all together into a howl of pain, despair, loss.

What purpose does The Killing Roads serve? Is it little more than an atrocity exhibition? It’s far more than that. You’ll remember after the attacks the series of protests supporting Hamas, the misinformation leading to claims of crisis actors, and the spasms of antisemitism. Hecht made this documentary, only the latest documentary he’s made about genocide, as a rebuke. It’s designed to show that on October 7, the IDF wasn’t targeted, nor were the police. Civilians were, people simply living their lives who were no threat to anyone, and their deaths were celebrated.

What it all comes down to is a very simple concept. People of differing opinions can make an argument about the Palestinian support of terrorism, or the Israeli occupation of Gaza. A discussion can be had and must be had. But the second that innocent people are gleefully targeted – by either side – it proves that the moral high ground has been lost, and suggests that perhaps there was no moral high ground to begin with. 

Igal Hecht is an intelligent and sophisticated filmmaker. He shows us with The Killing Roads that safety is an illusion. He also suggests how necessary the existence of a film like this is. After what I’ve written, I can understand your reluctance to watch this film. You worry that it’ll be depressing, horrific, traumatic. It’s all of those things. But consider how apathetic much of the American electorate is, how incurious and lacking in basic decency many of our leaders are, how so many of us from disparate political viewpoints are encouraged to develop points of view so factually wrong that it would be hilarious if it wasn’t so tragic. The Killing Roads works because it’s a smack in the face of pure reality, and that’s what’s needed to get our attention.

*Not eggs. We can’t afford those and a mortgage payment.

Tim Brennan Movie Critic

Tim has been alarmingly enthusiastic about movies ever since childhood. He grew up in Boulder and, foolishly, left Colorado to study Communications in Washington State. Making matters worse, he moved to Connecticut after meeting his too-good-for-him wife. Drawn by the Rockies and a mild climate, he triumphantly returned and settled down back in Boulder County. He's written numerous screenplays, loves hiking, and embarrassed himself in front of Samuel L. Jackson. True story.