Customer Reviews
Not vintage Meryl Streep 
2008-12-02
I am always interested in Meryl Streep. Her name was listed in a way suggesting she was a principal player. She is not.
This DVD will give you about 10 minutes of a character type that does not allow Streep to display her range of acting talent.
There are many other reviews which address the question of the use of interogation techniques in fighting terrorists and I don't wish to add another. This is not a "war" movie which will bring the country together.
Thought provoking film 
2008-11-24
Some interesting twists in this one!
The acting is well done. The story is more political than I expected but is worth watching. Character portrayal seems genuine although harsh as probably it needs to be to depict the real world.
The film seems one sided at times as you are pulled into the situation the pregnant wife is facing waiting for for news about her husband after missing from an international trip.
There are no right or wrong answers here. Those in charge are guarded about what they are doing and those who can help are reluctant to risk their careers by getting involved.
For the viewer, who is not really sure if the captive is guilty or innocent, it's important to see things from both sides. The tactics are considered legal to fight terrorism but what if the suspect is innocent of the charges?
There is a related thread that does not connect until quite late in the film. I had to keep wondering how that story line was related to the main topic - then the surprise ending... and it all comes together.
Our dark history 
2008-11-14
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 2008-11-07
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 2008-10-14
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 2008-09-25
Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep star in this nail- biting thriller about a man who mysteriously disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington DC and the government conspiracy put in place to cover it up.
A serious film about a serious topic that will make you cringe 2008-09-19
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.
Outstanding 2008-09-14
Outstanding presentation of a dark turn in American policy. "For every man you torture, you make a thousand enemies."
Good, gripping movie 2008-08-08
This was definitely a typical Hollywood portrayal of torture and rendition that I'm sure has gone on. I'm also sure that when authorities are out looking for suspects and leads, they undoubtedly come upon some that are false. I don't think they s/b tortured, but they shouldn't be given rights as US citizens either. I think this movie portrays the exception - a person who's been in the US for 20 years. What should be done? In this case he s/h/b brought in for questioning and detained. then released and watched. For others that have been caught like bin Ladens driver with missiles in the car, they should be imprisoned like he was.
Typical mindless liberal nonsense. 2008-07-26
Typical left wing "Hate America first" moive.
It is all our fault terrorists hate us.
There were not terrorists before Bush etc...
Save you money and get the same BS from the kook liberal blogs.
