Product Description

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: 1000036230

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #5248 in DVD
• Brand: Warner Brothers
• Released on: 2008-02-19
• Rating: R (Restricted)
• Aspect ratio: 2.35:1
• Formats: Closed-captioned, Color, DVD-Video, Widescreen, NTSC
• Original language: English, Spanish
• Subtitled in: English, Spanish
• Number of discs: 1
• Dimensions: 1.00 pounds
• Running time: 122 minutes

Amazon.com
Roger 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

Customer Reviews

Good, gripping movie
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.

Typical mindless liberal nonsense.
Typical left wing "Hate America first" moive.
It is all our fault terrorists hate us.
There were not terrorists before Bush etc...

Save you money and get the same BS from the kook liberal blogs.

If you think torture's a good idea, follow through your own logic
I was pleasantly surprised by Rendition. Sure, the film is political, and many will feel annoyed at the coverage. But, when you think about it, the torture in the movie "isn't that bad". In other words, if you buy Cheney's POV, then this is the least you could expect to happen - a bit of waterboarding. Is it pleasant to watch? No. But then, again if you agree with Dick, it shouldn't matter much, should it? Why raise a fuss?

What I liked about the movie is that it didn't shirk at showing the arguments _for_ torture. Merry Streep's much more convincing when she states "we saved 7000 people with those kinds of methods, a few months back" than her character in Lions For Lambs. Simple, to the point.

And some of the Islamists are shown to be pretty ugly-minded folks as well, not much deserving of sympathy.

The flip side? Well, the torturee confesses to something he didn't do (wouldn't you, to make it stop?) and the suicide bomber is initially motivated by his own brother's death at the hands of the secret police. The locale seems to be Morocco or Algeria, some Francophone place with heavy anti Islamic repression.

So all in all Rendition does a good job of presenting the fairly complex moral context in which this type of torture is being used. Too bad there is no real way to dress it up as an ethical choice, innit? The Gestapo was famous for waterboarding, btw, so be careful which moral side you pick and remember that it costs, heavily, in public relations. Remember also that, if torture really won wars, more countries would be doing it.

Movie-wise, the end twist was neat. But I could have done without the Reese Witherspoon pregnancy tearjerker. And Jake's character's actions were a bit hard to believe in.