Rendition: Timely and intelligent political thriller.
March 31, 2008
Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Peter Sarsgaard and Alan Arkin star in Rendition, a thriller from director Gavin Hood (Tsotsi). Witherspoon stars as the American wife of an Egyptian-born chemical engineer who disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington. 
Timely and intelligent political thriller, November 5, 2007 | By | Karen Franklin "Forensic Psychologist" (El Cerrito, CA, USA) |
This movie 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.
Excellent and intelligent political thriller, February 10, 2008 | By | H. Schneider "Hermit" (Puxi, Moinland) |
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.
