CINEMA: Rendition

So, Mr Bush, you say the USA doesn’t condone torture? As far as this film is concerned it not only does so, but it also ‘facilitates’ it by flying terrorist suspects to countries where torture is seen as a legitimate part of interrogation.

After a business trip to South Africam Egyptian-born Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) fails to make it back on his return flight. His heavily pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), is bewildered by his disappearance and enlists the help of an old friend (Peter Sarsgaard) in a US senator’s office to find out what has happened to him. As they investigate his phone records and credit card receipts they realise Anwar is a victim of extraordinary rendition – he has secretly been flown to an unspecified African country to be interrogated about terrorist atrocities, including suicide bombings. Although the torture is carried out by a local secret police officer (Yigor Naor), it is monitored by CIA agent Doug Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who slowly comes to the conclusion Anwar’s is a case of mistaken identity.

Rendition would have been a better film if the plot had concentrated more tightly on one set of main characters rather than involving a series of sub-plots (it’s actually three stories rolled into one – Anwar and Isabella’s, Doug’s, and also the secret policeman and his daughter and her boyfriend). It also employs a superfluous time-loop device that doesn’t push the story forward. However, it is very well acted, especially by Witherspoon and Metwally, and there’s a great cameo from Meryl Streep as the CIA boss bitch from hell. The torture scenes are disturbing and difficult to watch, but the film lacks passion and so you never feel as angry as the subject matter should make you. This lack of involvement with what is going on detracts from what is otherwise a worthy take on a reprehensible practise.     Dee Pilgrim