The Red and Black

Issue date: 11/1/07 Section: Out & About

Media Credit: Courtesy Sam Emerson Omar Metwally (center) stars alongside Reese Witherspoon in "Rendition," a politically charged action thriller directed by Oscar winner Gavin Hood. [Click to enlarge]

It's too bad the most press exposure given to "Rendition" was the rumored romance between stars Jake Gyllenhaal and Reese Witherspoon.

The film focuses on an Egyptian-born man, Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), and his simple plight to travel from South Africa back to his Chicago home and his pregnant wife Isabella (Witherspoon).

En route, he is taken hostage by the CIA when suspected to have information about a bomb detonated in South Africa that killed civilians and a CIA agent.

The story explores the controversial idea of "extraordinary rendition," enacted during the Clinton era, which allows those believed to have involvement with terrorists to be taken with no record for questioning.

The suspects are tortured for information on another country's soil to maintain America's squeaky clean image of "America does not torture."


"Rendition" takes this unnerving concept and humanizes it with Anwar's complete lack of knowledge of the attack and desperation to get back to his family.

In a "Babel"-esque fashion, other plot points intertwine with Anwar's. Back in America, Isabella fights with the Senate to find her husband. In Africa, a CIA analyst, Douglas Freeman (Gyllenhaal), is given his first assignment of brutality after his boss's death. And Abasi Fawal, the torturer, has problems of his own as his young daughter uses a rendezvous with a mysterious boy to rebel out of his reach.

The top-notch acting holds the film together and keeps the audience invested in all of these stories.

Try not to empathize with Anwar as strangers in an unknown country ruthlessly interrogate him about people he doesn't know with means America says it stands against.

Try not to empathize with Isabella running around Washington, searching for an understanding face in the government, or a demoralized Daniel coming to terms with the moral intricacies of his job.

Try not to despise Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep), head of US Intelligence, who is a dignified über-bitch that authorizes the rendition and ignores all humanity.

The twists, turns and thought-provoking resolution leave a nervous feeling about future government policies.

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