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| Rendition | 
| Category: Movie
This item is no longer available
Avg. Customer Rating:  72 reviews
Sales Rank: 1128
Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: Video On Demand
Running Time: 123 minutes
ASIN: B0014BC3C2
Release Date: August 29, 2008
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| Customer Reviews: Read 67 more reviews...
 Extraordinary Rendition October 14, 2008
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)
 A study in unreasonable torture September 25, 2008
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.
A serious film about a serious topic that will make you cringe September 19, 2008
12 out of 12 found this review helpful
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 September 14, 2008
2 out of 2 found this review helpful
Outstanding presentation of a dark turn in American policy. "For every man you torture, you make a thousand enemies."
Good, gripping movie August 8, 2008
1 out of 1 found this review helpful
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.
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