Others say...

"Our dark history"
Rendition is very well done. It left me speechless and exhausted at the end. This movie is an indictment on the outgoing Bush administration and where our country as descended in human and civil rights.

"Torture: American Style"
Films that incorporate a solid political message along with outstanding performances are few and far between. The problem is incorporating the message without ramming it down the audience's throat. Or not losing the audience in a quagmire of politicalese. Syriana suffered from the latter, while this one suffered only slightly under the strain of throat ramming and some poor character development (or minimal screen time).

The film's premise is based on the U.S. legal maneuver known as "extraordinary rendition," which, when translated, means the deportation of suspected terrorists to countries outside the U.S. for interrogation (see torture).

Names, a person's birth country, and the color of one's skin come into play strongly, giving the flick a well-deserved sense of political bigotry. When Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally, Munich) comes back to the U.S. (his adopted home country) he is met at the airport by agents who quickly stuff him into a van and whisk him off to a far-away country. The big question is why? The reality is startling. When a U.S. agent is accidentally killed, the U.S. terrorists chasers want a scapegoat or, at the very least, someone to cop to helping the one who did it. And poor Anwar just happens to be in the wrong place at the wrong time (with the wrong name and skin color).

Jake Gyllenhaal (Brokeback Mountain) stars as a CIA operative who has to witness firsthand the "interrogation" of Amwar. Having been friends with the American who was killed, Douglas Freeman (Gyllenhaal) quickly loses his stomach for the methods used by the U.S.- backed, foreign interrogators.

Back in America, Amwar's pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon, Walk the Line) is wondering why he hasn't returned home. Calling upon an old beau named Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard, Jarhead) who works for Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin, Little Miss Sunshine), Isabella is given the runaround by the higher-ups regarding her husband's whereabouts. Finally given the name of a homeland security person named Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep, The Devil Wears Prada) she again butts heads with government silence on the policy of extraordinary rendition.

Horrible and redeeming, RENDITION has plenty of strong actors who are given tidbit parts (except for Jake Gyllenhaal), giving much of the film an unidentifiable message from the standpoint of characters and our lack of caring for any of them.

It is, however, well told. And the way the story works itself from beginning to end and then back again was pretty impressive (more of a parlor trick, though, but still fun to watch).

"Extraordinary Rendition"
Once Upon a Time in Hollywood: From the Secret Files of Harry Pennypacker
Shadow Watcher
Nobody Drowns in Mineral Lake

"I fear you speak upon the rack, where men enforced do speak anything."

That's a line from Shakespeare's THE MERCHANT OF VENICE, and it's also a key theme in RENDITION, a disturbing, yet very good film.

Omar Metwally plays an Egyptian citizen, a successful chemical engineer who has lived in the United States since he was 14-years old. He's married to Reese Witherspoon, has a young son and another child on the way.

On his way back to his home in Chicago from a scientific conference in South Africa, he is intercepted at the Washington D.C. airport and taken into custody by the CIA. They believe he is a terrorist and may be responsible for a recent bombing in North Africa.

Even though he passes a lie detector test and there is no credible evidence against him, CIA chief Meryl Streep orders that he be sent back to Africa for interrogation and torture.

Jake Gyllenhaal plays a low level CIA agent, assigned to oversee Metwally's interrogation. He becomes increasingly uncomfortable with what he observes, particularly after he is convinced that the man is innocent.

Alan Arkin and Peter Sarsgaard are cast as the U.S. Senator and his chief aide to whom Witherspoon turns when her husband disappears.

RENDITION, directed by Gavin Hood, is a tense, exciting political thriller that follows multiple characters and storylines to a powerful climax. There is also a major surprise near the end of the film.

© Michael B. Druxman, author of ONCE UPON A TIME IN HOLLYWOOD

"A study in unreasonable torture"
I like films that question the methods our present administration is involved, and this film does that. Well acted by all, including a caustic Senator enacted very well by Meryl Streep. The film raises the question of how far can we go in the detaining of a person we suspect to be a terrorist and the methods of what constitues "torture". I think the only people who would object to this film would be the conservative right.

"A serious film about a serious topic that will make you cringe"
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.