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Star Power Wasted In Torture Drama

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By CHRISTY LEMIRE, The Associated Press

Published: October 19, 2007

'Rendition' focuses on the U.S. government's policy of transporting captured terror suspects to foreign countries for detention, interrogation and perhaps torture - a topic that's prime for debate and more than worthy for exploration in a film.

But there's not much room for debate in director Gavin Hood's first feature since winning the foreign-language Oscar for South Africa's 'Tsotsi' (2005).

Everything is black and white here, a tremendous disservice considering the complexity of the issue. There's also an oversimplification, an insulting dumbing-down, as if the audience was incapable of interpreting shades of gray.

The abduction of an Egyptian-born American (Omar Metwally) suspected of helping North African terrorists plot a deadly bombing is obviously a mistake. His pretty, pregnant wife (Reese Witherspoon) is left to worry, understandably, but her response is reduced to little more than increasingly shrieky grief.

The CIA analyst (Jake Gyllenhaal) assigned to monitor the suspect's torture is unwavering in his disapproval; conversely, the CIA's head of terrorism (Meryl Streep), who ordered the rendition, is unflappable in her certainty.

Then, at the very end, the script from Kelley Sane takes a narrative twist that's distractingly contradictory to the realism and relevance 'Rendition' had been trying to achieve all along.

Walking in, we're clearly expected to view this as a film of great importance, because of the subject matter and all the Oscar winners up there on the screen (the cast also includes Alan Arkin as a senator from the suspect's home state of Illinois who refuses to help facilitate his release). Instead, it feels like a missed opportunity, though Hood does achieve some moments of wrenching intensity.

'Rendition' begins with Metwally's chemical engineer, Anwar, flying home from a South African business conference and apparently disappearing before catching a connecting flight in Washington, D.C. That's the way it initially looks to his wife, Witherspoon's Isabella, who's waiting for him in suburban Chicago with their young son and another baby on the way.

Meanwhile, in an unnamed North African country, an explosion has rocked a town's central square. Its intended target was Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor), the head of the secret prison where terror suspects are taken for questioning and more, if they're not forthcoming. He oversees this grueling process himself and takes great pride in his work (again, no moral dilemmas with him). And his teenage daughter (Zineb Oukach) happens to be dating a young Islamic fundamentalist (Mohammed Khouas) who may have been involved in the attack.

Pointing fingers at Anwar seems like a misunderstanding at first - maybe a mix-up involving cell phone numbers and similar names. Nevertheless, Streep's strident (and conspicuously Southern) Corrinne Whitman declares dismissively, 'Put him on the plane.' (She and Arkin, both villainous figures, get a few zingers here and there but their characters are drawn two-dimensionally.)

Isabella is left to do her own detective work with the help of an old college boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard), who conveniently works as a top aide to Arkin's Sen. Hawkins, who's on Whitman's committee and meets with her weekly. Which also seems too convenient. Sarsgaard brings the sort of nuance to his conflicted character we've come to expect from him in every role , and he does get one tantalizing exchange with Streep.

MOVIE REVIEW

Rendition **

MOVIE BOARD RATING: R (torture/violence, profanity)

STARS: Meryl Streep, Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Peter Sarsgaard, Omar Metwally, Alan Arkin
DIRECTOR: Gavin Hood
LOCATION: See movie times, Page 9, for local showtimes.

PLOT SUMMARY: Woman searches for her missing husband, a terrorism suspect being held by the CIA.

RUNNING TIME: 122 minutes

ON THE WEB: renditionmovie

.com

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