During the Clinton administration, the CIA was authorized to detain terror suspects in prisons in third world countries to use that loophole that arrestees weren't entitled to the rights to attorney and against cruel and usual punishment.
Only under dire circumstances was that act authorized to be used. Enter the Bush administration and 9/11. And we have "Rendition."
Egyptian-born chemical engineer Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is on his way home to greet his pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) and their young son. However, strange occurrences land him in the hands of the CIA, alleging him as having contact with a known terrorist leader. Following simple interrogations on American soil by agent Lee Mayer (J.K. Simmons). When he doesn't show up on the plane in Chicago, his wife begins to get inquisitive.
Meanwhile, a suicide bombing in North Africa prompts CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) to become the "supervisor" of said detainees who are tortured and deprived of civil rights-including El-Ibrahimi. When Douglas is thrust into this world without knowledge of what happens, he begins to question the purpose of these interrogations-and if they even work.
Isabella goes to one of Anwar's college friends Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard), an assistant to Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin), to see if he can get answers. Alan learns that behind all these decisions of "extradition" to foreign countries are made by Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep), whose official position is never quite revealed.
Director Gavin Hood knows his way around the world, cinematically. In his Best Foreign Language Academy Award-winning "Tsotsi," Hood explored the gang underworld of a third world country. His experience there transitions nicely to explored the underworld that is the CIA. The multi-layered story is very much influenced by Paul Haggis' "Crash" but doesn't completely rip-off that film. It is long-winded and drawn out, but the film works.
And while this film chooses a separate topic from Iraq, it really doesn't go all-out unabashedly. It is the most provocative of what I like to call "Bush criticism films," but it still seems restrained, erring on the side of caution. It pushes buttons but in guarded, predictable fashion.
The performances are good, but that is expected from a cast of this caliber. The good performances and the exposition of brutality of the torture sequences (which aren't entirely graphic) are held in delicate balance for "Rendition," which has a lot to say but takes awhile to confess.
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