What if someone you knew just disappeared?
Spanning two continents, Rendition tracks the lives of Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), a CIA analyst based in North Africa who is forced to question his assignment after he witnesses the brutal and unorthodox interrogation of an Egyptian-American by secret North African police; Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), the Egyptian-American chemical engineer whose family emigrated to the States when he was a boy, and who is now suspected of a terrorist act; his pregnant wife Isabella El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon), who does everything in her power to find her missing husband, who has seemingly disappeared during a flight from Cape Town, South Africa to Washington DC by enlisting the help of a politically-connected college friend; Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard), an aide to Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin), who uncovers the troubling fact that Anwar has been shipped off, on the orders of the CIA's head of terrorism; Corrinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) to a third world country for interrogation; and Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor), the head of the secret prison who has personal problems of his own with a rebellious daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach) and her Islamic fundamentalist boyfriend Khalid (Moa Khouas).
Special Agent Matti
Rendition verges on the brutal. Physical violence, emotional violence, political violence; this film is splattered with the results thereof. If nothing else, Hollywood is certainly not supporting George Bush's war.
Meanwhile, with Rendition you have the usual suspects: innocent man in the wrong place at the wrong time; overzealous bureaucrat/patriot; frightened politician; Third-World politician with no conscience; good man in a bad place; blonde-haired, blue-eyed, determined, pregnant wife.
All you need to do is keep reminding yourself that it's better to imprison 99 innocent men than to let 1 guilty man go free.
The action, thriller movie Rendition is directed by Gavin Hood and stars Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep.
MA 15+ (Strong torture themes and violence)
122 minutes (2:02 hours)
Film: 14 February 2008
