Customer Reviews

Rendition

5 star:		(29)
4 star:		(36)
3 star:		(15)
2 star:		(7)
1 star:		(12)

 

 

This 2007 film is scary. That's because the theme is about the practice of interrogating suspected terrorists in a foreign country where laws against torture do not apply. This practice is called rendition and this film makes it real. It's hard to watch.

The film opens in an American middle class suburb. Reese Witherspoon is playing with her small son when they get a phone call from her husband, Omar Metwally, an Egyptian citizen who has lived in America for 20 years. He tells his wife and son he is on the way home from a business trip and they plan on meeting him at the airport. All seems well.

When he gets off the plane, however, he is detained at the airport and questioned. He is a chemical engineer and the questioners are asking questions about a terrorist bomb plot. He denies everything. He seems clean but Meryl Streep, playing a high powered Washington decision maker, orders him to be put into rendition and he is whisked away to an unnamed middle eastern country and his name erased from the plane's passenger log while his wife and son wait patiently at the airport for a husband and father who has disappeared.

The scene now shifts to an unnamed middle eastern country where Yagal Noor, an Israeli actor of Jewish Iraqi descent, is cast in the role of the interrogator. Jake Gyllenhaal is cast as an American diplomat, who has just lost a co-worker in a suicide bombing, and has been promoted to assist Yagal Noor with the questioning. It is awful. I am cringing now just writing about it as scenes of waterboarding and electric shock torture are shown in detail. There is also a subplot about the interrogator's daughter and a suicide bomber which expands the story.

In the meantime Reese Witherspoon is trying desperately to find her husband. She seeks out an old boyfriend, played by Peter Sarsgaard who works for a senator, played by Alan Arkin. Even when they confront Meryl Streep, there is a blank wall of silence. Jake Gyllenhaal, however, is beginning to have a change of heart as the torturing goes on.

This is a serious film about a serious topic. It will make you cringe and it will also make you think. I give it a high recommendation but it is not recommended for the faint of heart.

This well acted drama is a wakeup call to the horrors of the alleged practice of "extraordinary rendition", where persons suspected of being involved in terrorist activities are apprehended and sent to another country to be interrogated (translate: tortured)

Based upon one cell phone record and an Islamic name, chemical engineer Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is removed from a flight from South Africa to Washington D.C. and sent to an interrogation centre, where he is questioned, beaten and abused for proclaiming his innocence.

The movie uses flashbacks and lots of switching between characters to illustrate the chain reaction that results, and how it affects not only El-Ibrahimi, but also his wife (Reese Witherspoon), his family, an observing CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal), and even his torturer, Abasi Fawal.

In a gripping sub-plot, Fawal's daughter secretly becomes romantically involved with a young man, not knowing that his brother had perished at the hands of her father.

Chilling at times, and maddening at others, especially when Meryl Streep's character gets involved, this movie is about the suffering of the innocent as a result of the sins of a minority. Food for thought, even though it may be a bit too bitter for some tastes.


Amanda Richards, March 5, 2008

There's a lot on this DVD, almost all of it interesting and informative.

The movie itself is a dramatization of a composite case in which a traveler with a Middle Eastern name and heritage gets flagged as having possible terrorist ties, is waylaid by US/coalition authorities, and is sent to an "undisclosed location" where he is subjected to brutal bouts of questioning and torture. All this happens because of what might have been a simple cell phone mix-up.

However, to the movie's credit, while making a moving humanitarian appeal against such treatment, it does not foreclose on the possibility that this traveler might have some al-Qaida ties. The movie also tries to give at least some weight to our State Department's arguments for the necessity of extracting information by any means. Meryl Streep makes the Government case with chilling pragmatic efficiency.

So this movie does recognize some of the complexities involved. It is not a simplistic good guys vs. bad guys screed. This becomes especially true as it interweaves the story of two young Middle Eastern lovers caught up in the inflamed politics of their fundamentalist culture.

Then this DVD contains what is tantamount to a whole second feature film - this one a documentary outlining the cases of two men who actually were tortured at such top-secret compounds located in out-of-the-way places around the globe. These undisclosed locations actually exist and are the receiving points for suspects detained under the Rendition Act.

Neither of the two men interviewed here are Americans. The testimony of the German National from a Middle Eastern background is especially poignant. He talks about how his life was derailed by the torture he endured after he was taken, hooded and humiliated, to one of these sites - on the flimsiest evidence of any terrorist involvement.

Finally, the DVD comes with a particularly intelligent Director's commentary. It will be worth your while to watch the features again, with this commentary turned on. In the end, Director Hood calls his project "a poetic lament." There's probably no better way to sum up the complex, compelling tragedies brought home by this DVD.

RENDITION has it all: Superb direction (by the masterful Gavin Hood of "Crash" fame); a great cast (Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Omar Metwally); a riveting and harrowing plot that keeps you on the edge of your seat; even an interesting twist at the end (which I won't give away) that had us all discussing the movie for an hour afterwards. And if all of that isn't enough, this is an extremely timely topic. Our government's participation in torturing people at secret prisons around the world is something that all American citizens should be discussing and debating. Unfortunately, this engaging thriller is not getting the audience it deserves. The fact that "Saw IV," a warped glorification of brutality, has earned four times as much at the box office as Rendition suggests that for many Americans, out of sight is out of mind and escapism is the name of the game.

The film itself is flawless. After spending Chinese New year stuck at home with a few dozen movies and plenty of spare time, I can say that most other films that I watched were solidly in the 2 to 3 star class, while this one has everything for it: a solid story, based on current political events, a first class cast, excellent cinematography (the No Country For Old Men crowd might get their desert pictures from here too!), and even a good copy for me.
And then as an add-on the odd reviews here by the political wackos. Very entertaining, if they were not so sad.
The subject is, as the title says, rendition, i.e. the practice of transferring suspects to other countries without proper procedure. A suspect can be anybody by accident. The plot here involves a young CIA agent in 'North Africa', who is not used to the practices, it is his first 'torture case'. He develops a conscience and acts upon it. In parallel we watch a young local couple, the daughter of the police chief, who ran away from home, with her boy friend, an art student, who is of course also something else. The story is skillfully intervowen with the interrogation of the suspect from the US.
Recommendable.

After all the hype about its poor box office receipts, I was wary about a serious political film starring LEGALLY BLONDE's Reese Witherspoon, or another sensationalist "rendition" of what American movies make of torture.

But the script is particularly intricate and intelligent, with a wonderful twist. Sorry it didn't catch fire for the amazon reviewer, but the restraint with which this film treats the subject is responsible and works well.

Especially since--despite the director's political position--the script does harken back to the early years of LAW AND ORDER, when the strongest arguments of all sides of an issue were voiced.

A detailed review of this movie might ruin the pleasure of discovering how each character makes the choice between acting morally or simply walking away and doing nothing.

The movie elucidates legal rendition used by the United States, where suspects are taken into US custody but delivered to a third-party state. Torture by proxy is the most abhorrent form of torture, because it frees you from direct involvement in what is being done to another person.
Since 9/11, the CIA has reportedly launched an investigation into such cases of "erroneous rendition" where suspects were subject to rendition, confessed to crimes they didn't commit and were later found to be innocent civilians.

The subject of rendition in this movie is a wrongfully accused Egyptian born engineer (Omar Metwally), who lives in the United States with his wife (Reese Witherspoon) and child.
For the first time in his life, CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) watches this torture, led by Fawal (Yiqal Naor, who gracefully played Saddam Husain in "House of Saddam"), and chooses to take a moral stand despite his boss's disapproval. At the same time, in juxtaposition to the torture event, a young suicide bomber, under the powerful control of a terrorist group, makes his own moral choice.

Great performances and a great story, enhanced by the presence of Meryl Streep and Yiqal Naor. Some might find the idea of a CIA member standing up to his bosses or a suicide bomber saying no to his recruiters incredible. In real life both people might not survive, but I believe that some hope still exist and the duty of the director and the movie is to propose the possibility of hope.

Is the idea of hero who dares to change things, merely a dream? Perhaps, but it's a grand dream!

Although this has gotten some mixed reviews, I found it to be quite gripping. It can be painful to watch because it deals with "extraordinary rendition", rather vague terms for what amounts to sheer and brutal torture of suspected enemies.

In this case, a man with an Islamic name is simply removed from a flight and taken to an "interrogation room" . He is questioned and beaten within an inch of his life, slowly and gruesomely (no, this one isn't for the faint-hearted).

Meryl Streep is pitch perfect as someone who supports this practice. Reese Witherspoon does a fine job as the wife wondering where her husband is, how come he suddenly disappeared from seemed to be a routine flight home.

I urge you to check out the documentary in the "special features" section of the DVD. It contains actual interviews with survivors of this practice, this torture and it lends credibility to the movie.

The film does not have pat answers or easy solutions. It is raw, brutal and honest.

I liked this movie, I thought it was compelling. As I expected though, there were some on the right who called this movie unamerican and anti-american in their reviews. This is to be expected though. Though quite a number of conservatives share the concern of those on the left for the use harsh interrogations means (and sending prisoners/detainees to nations such as Egypt where we know they will use torture to acquire information is definately one of them) quite a number on the right don't really share these concerns. Which is most ironic, because it is the far right that usually states (often because of deep religious convictions) that it has absolutely moral truth and authority. Often this supposedly comes from the deity they worship. So, if you support the practices depicted in this film then you lose that "absolute moral authority/truth/ rightness" that you have. It is the left who much more then the right who are principled when it comes opposition to the use of torture or torture lite. Which is most ironic, since they are said not to have a moral compass or that they practice moral relativism. Again, this is not to say to be very religious or even conservative one can't oppose torture or "harsh interrogation" but all too often the more religious one is, the more one supports these things. Lastly, I fully expect to be called unamerican or some variant of it, on someone's comments, because that is what unfortunately far too many people who can't defend their position without emotion, resort to very frequently. This film is pro-American, it stands for American values of due process and freedom from being tortured by the state. It lives up to America's highest ideals.

The film's main goal is entertainment, but it is nicely filled with political overtones that are truly thought-provoking. The cast makes up for a great ensemble, they all provide great performances. Nice international cast, by the way. This is a movie that unfortunately didn't do much business in theatres but sure is going to have a second life on home entertainment. It deserves to be seen.