“They had all the material for an incendiary political classic.

“They had the source biography of Mohamedou Ould Slahi (Guantanamo Diary), about his 14 years of incarceration and torture at the Guantanamo Bay detention centre.

“They had the versatile French-Algerian actor Tahar Rahim (The Serpent), ready to deliver a knockout central performance as Slahi.

“They had star power lining up to play the legal teams scrapping over Slahi’s fate, including Jodie Foster as the defence attorney Nancy Hollander and Benedict Cumberbatch as the military prosecutor Lieutenant Colonel Stuart Couch.

“They even had a director, Kevin Macdonald, with a proven record in transforming historical fodder into cinematic gold (see The Last King of Scotland). Unforgivably, they messed it up.”

Read more at The Times