Rendition

Year: 2007
Director: Gavin Hood
Cast: Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Peter Sarsgaard, Alan Arkin, Meryl Streep, Omar Metwally, Igal Naor, J.K. Simmons, Moa Khouas, Zineb Oukach

After looking at the poster closely, I realised that it's very similar to the posters for The Siege and Babel, where there are multiple levels showing different cast members and locations. Pretty neat.

Rendition in English means "handing over", in this case, handing over a person to another country for interrogation purposes. Rendition focuses on a suicide bombing in Egypt, that kills 19 people and wounds 75 others. The target was police chief interrogator Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor), who escapes unhurt. One of the victims however, is an American CIA agent.

This prompts CIA top brass Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep) to take extreme measures to find the men responsible. She puts CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) in charge of the investigation and assigns him to witness the interrogation of a suspect connected with the people behind the bombing. Freeman, who was next to the dead agent at the time, and who is relatively new to the job, reluctantly agrees.

The suspect is an Egyptian born chemical engineer named Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), who is on the way home to Chicago when he is snatched by the CIA at the airport. Whitman sends him to Egypt to be questioned by Freeman and Abasi. The man maintains his innocence, so Abasi resorts to brutal interrogation exercises, much to Freeman's discomfort.

Meanwhile, back in the US, Anwar's American wife, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) tries her best to find her missing husband. She turns to an old friend, Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard) for help. Alan is the secretary for a top ranking senator (played by Alan Arkin), and he learns of Whitman's involvement, and tries to fight for Anwar's freedom. Meanwhile, there is a subplot involving Abasi's daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach), whose boyfriend Khalid (Moa Khouas) is part of the terrorist group responsible for the bombing.

Like Syriana and Babel, Rendition has several smaller plots running simultaneously to form the film's main storyline. In this case, there are three plots: Isabella's quest to find her husband, Freeman's involvement in an interrogation he doesn't approve of, and Abasi's daughter's connection with terrorists. All these weave seamlessly together to form a stunning film in a visual and verbal sense. Director Gavin Hood does well in not only getting the best out of his cast, but also telling his story satisfactorily. There's rarely a moment wasted on film. Screenwriter Kelley Sane has done a marvelous job as well with the script at hand.

The cast perform splendidly too. Streep is a lot like her character in The Manchurian Candidate; ruthless and defiant. But it works nonetheless. Gyllenhaal isn't too bad either as the conflicted Freeman, while Witherspoon does well as Isabella. But the standout performance comes from Metwally, who gives just the right amount of fear and despair of a man under torture in his portrayal of Anwar. The Middle Eastern cast are also very impressive in their roles.

To the film's credit, it presents the issue of brutal and inhuman torture in the name of the war on terror convincingly. But I feel that despite that, it merely scratches the surface on the matter. Sure, it shows us how low we can go in pursuing evil men based on information that may or may not be reliable, but the film doesn't quite address the bottom line of such actions. If it does happen, has anyone done anything about it?

In any case, I'd still recommend it. Look out for a twist in the last 20 minutes that puts things in perspective. Good stuff. (4/5)