Coming soon to your local theater, a new batch of films that seek to help you understand and empathize with mass murderers: New films ask why suicide bombers kill.

LOS ANGELES (Reuters) - Making “Paradise Now,” a tale of why two laid-back garage mechanics become suicide bombers, was not easy for Palestinian filmmaker Hany Abu-Assad — he had to scramble for funds, dodge a missile attack from Israel plus skirt landmines and threats from extremists.

But the filming in Nablus, where his location manager was briefly kidnapped as a warning by factions afraid the film would be critical, was just one hurdle. He has to see if anyone is listening as he tries to explain a new fact of modern life.

The movie, now opening across the United States, takes its place with two other fictional films dramatizing the unanswered question of the post-9/11 world: What makes a person become a suicide bomber, ready to take his or her life and those of innocent strangers.

Is it the promise of paradise, virgins, an act of revenge, courage, despair or impotence? …

Neither “Paradise Now” nor “War Within” defends suicide bombers but instead each wants the viewer to understand the mind-set that produces such acts — because, as Abu-Assad says, to understand is a first step forward.

One scene in his movie is set in a video store that might pass for one in the West except that it sells tapes made by suicide bombers who explain their actions to inspire those that follow. The tapes seem to take on the role that baseball trading cards might have in the West.

See, they’re just like us! We have trading cards, they have martyrdom videos made by mass murderers. No difference, really.

And of course, none of the reviewers giving awards to “Paradise Now” are the least bit concerned that it’s an appalling work of propaganda, based entirely on lies.