Rendition
by Gavin Hood
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DVD details
Actor: Aramis Knight, Jake Gyllenhaal, Omar Metwally, Reese Witherspoon, Rosie Malek-YonanDirector: Gavin Hood
Brand: Warner Brothers
DVD: Region Code 1
Audio: English (Original Language), Dolby Digital 2.0 Surround; Spanish (Original Language); English (Subtitled); Spanish (Subtitled)
Format: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, NTSC, Widescreen
Picture Format: 2.35:1
Running Time: 122 minutes
DVD Release Date: 2008-02-19
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Studio: New Line Home Video
DVD Reviews of Rendition
DVD Review: Extraordinary Rendition
Summary: 5 Stars
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 (available December 2008)
DVD Review: A study in unreasonable torture
Summary: 4 Stars
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. DVD Review: A serious film about a serious topic that will make you cringe
Summary: 5 Stars
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.
DVD Review: Outstanding
Summary: 5 Stars
Outstanding presentation of a dark turn in American policy. "For every man you torture, you make a thousand enemies."DVD Review: Good, gripping movie
Summary: 4 Stars
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.
Description of Rendition
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.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre:?DRAMA/MILITARY & WAR UPC:?794043112928 Manufacturer No:?1000036230Roger Ebert called it "perfect," and certainly the timing couldn't have been much better: Rendition was released just as the U.S. was debating anew the issue of "extraordinary rendition," a policy (begun under the Clinton administration, accelerated after September 11, 2001) of handing over suspected terrorists to countries that use torture as an interrogation tool. Alas, the movie only rarely fills in the outlines of a prototypical "issue movie," the kind of thing peopled by cardboard characters tracing the patterns of an important, indeed urgent, subject. The plot kicks into gear when an Egyptian-born man (Omar Metwally) is sent to an unnamed North African country where torture is practiced, with the CIA in approval. The film takes a Crash dive through how this affects various people: his pregnant American wife (Reese Witherspoon), the reluctant CIA agent (Jake Gyllenhaal) on the scene, a severe interrogator (Yigal Naor), all the way up to a U.S. terrorism honcho (Meryl Streep) willing to turn a blind eye to the unpleasantness if it stops a terrorist attack. Things spark briefly when Witherspoon enlists an old beau (Peter Sarsgaard) to plead her case with his boss, a U.S. Senator (Alan Arkin), but for the most part director Gavin Hood (Totsi) can't find a way to color in these line drawings, despite the formidable actors doing spirited work. The issue is fully and lucidly explained, but the movie doesn't come alive. --Robert Horton
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