In this post-9/11 world, a controversial government policy known as “extraordinary rendition” has become prevalent. It gives U.S. security agencies the power to seize suspicious foreign nationals and secretly ship them off overseas so that they can be held indefinitely and interrogated in places where concepts like civil liberties and the Geneva Convention don’t exist. The movie called “Rendition” uses the star power of Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal and Meryl Streep to shed light on a subject worth an examination in the art form of fictional film and — more especially — in the news media.
Unfortunately, this purposeful, socially conscious thriller is rendered with little dramatic nuance and even less political intricacy. It therefore thwarts its own efforts to make the case against torture and the paranoia that justifies its use. The earnest effort bydirector Gavin Hood (behind the Oscar winner “Tsotsi”) has several undeniably compelling scenes that depict the systemized cruelty (and, according to this, ultimate futility) of the harsh methods used. But the impressive lineup of Hollywood actors is mostly wasted in oversimplified roles in the Kelley Sane screenplay.
Witherspoon is given the thankless, whiney position of suffering wife Isabella El-Ibrahimi. Her Egyptian-born husband (Omar Metwally) is suspected to be an accessory to a recent terrorist bombing abroad. He is forced over to that unnamed North African country to be subjected to its merciless native security authority Abasi Falwal (Igal Naor) and the reticent CIA agent in charge Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal).
Back home, Isabella petitions an old beau, a congressional aide (the usually more fascinating Peter Sarsgaard), to intervene on her husband’s behalf with his Senator boss (Alan Arkin) and the hard-nosed head of the CIA anti-terrorism division. That part belongs to Streep as another devil — this time sporting a sensible Washington woman’s working wardrobe instead of Prada. Her she-villain here isn’t nearly as mesmerizing this time around. Neither her cartoonishly cruel administrator nor any other character that favors the use of controversial interrogation methods is allowed to be complicated or, heaven forbid, sympathetic in “Rendition.”
The one moving subplot in the movie doesn’t involve any of the marquee names. It concerns a tragic love story between the daughter (Zineb Oukach) of the chief North African torturer and a grieving young man, Khalid (Moa Khouas), who has been sucked into a local terrorist cell after his brother is murdered. His life journey gives some insight into why the world has a terrorism problem to begin with and overshadows the rest of Hood’s polemic against current U.S. policy.
‘Rendition’
**
Starring: Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep
Director: Gavin Hood
Rated R for torture, violence and language
Running time: 121 minutes
