Zer0 Days

Prolific documentarian Alex Gibney (The Armstrong Lie, Going Clear) here turns his attention to the world of computer malware, taking an investigative approach and revealing America's secret online skulduggery. The starting point is the emergence of Stuxnet, a frighteningly sophisticated virus with an international spread that has top computer security experts desperately trying to unpick its code - ultimately tracing it to a joint US-Israeli operation to nobble Iranian nuclear centrifuges before they produced a weapons-grade threat. It sounds like some high-tech movie thriller, and indeed Gibney's approach includes much sinister text crawling across monitors to the strains of ominous music. To some extent that helps ease the viewer through the sheer density of detail involved, while high-profile interviewees from governmental agencies and security services alike, as well as indefatigable New York Times journalist David E Sanger, lend genuine heft to an absorbing, highly relevant film. Fingers are certainly pointed, yet Gibney ultimately argues strongly for credible international co-operation to police this whole murky arena before it gets way out of hand.