One of the best films i have seen

Memorable, crazy movie

A great movie, one of the best of this year. There was a bit of confusion at one point in the plot, but nothing serious.

.Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

"Rendition" is primarily about the often-uncompromising CIA ritual of extraordinary rendition based on an actual event where after a deadly suicide bombing in a tea house in North Africa, which 18 people were killed including a young CIA agent in the process. A CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who was at the scene when his new colleague was killed. The target was aimed towards decorated police official Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor), who's in cahoots with the Americans and assists them in preparing interrogations, and other initiatives that may seem like a necessity to the CIA but to average civilians feel more like torture. Fawal escapes without a scratch. Meanwhile, Egyptian-born Chicago resident Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) who's a chemical engineer and family man who lives with his wife who's pregnant, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) and their son and his mother may be a possible suspect towards a dangerous organization from phone records linked towards a terrorist named Rashid who has been leaving messages on Anwar's phone.Anwar is arrested by American officials in South Africa where he was detained in a hidden facility near the scene of the bombing. There he was sentenced to severe interrogation and punishment. Freeman remains an observer towards Anwar's interrogation which Fawal is the interrogator himself. After questioning Anwar, Freeman is reluctant to believe that Anwar had anything with the bombing, but his boss, the cunning Corinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) wants the procedure to continue as a way to protect thousands from potential terrorist threats. Concerned about her husband's well-being, Isabella goes to Washington D.C. to meet an old friend Alan Smith (Peter Saragaard) who's now an aide to Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin) and pleads him into getting more information about her abducted husband. With lots of complex twists and revelations coming along the way in this film that's quite difficult to swallow at times, we progressively get deeper into coming to conclusion if Anwar had anything to do with the North African bombing or if it was just an unfortunate case of mistaken identity. Eventually Freeman's reality check is in full gears and soon begins to believe that Anwar truly knows nothing about the suicide bombings and along with Anwar make a dramatic breakout of the prison. However, Fawal's daughter is going steady with an extremist boyfriend who has an eye-for-an-eye plot of revenge for his brother who was the victim of interrogation which led to death by Fawal. The cinematography by Dion Beebe is quite exquisite centred around the city of Marrakesh. Director Gavin Hood's agenda changes from a previous outing "Tsotsi" where he took his personal agenda with him, but in "Rendition", he takes a step back in creating a very political, more captivating human drama. Even though his film is very one-sided at times, the complexities of his movie shows that Mr. Hood is very intelligent man capable of creating such intriguing and mind-numbing narratives. Each of the narratives are handled with precaution thanks mainly to the provocative script by Kelley Sane. Even though Sane's script is rock solid, I did find that the main weakness is the lack of emotional charge within the characters and it felt like a lot could've been done, it just felt the characters had very little to work with. The performances vary from mediocre to pure devotion, but the best of the bunch comes from Igal Naor who has to choose at time from traditional government to doing what needs to be done right. We may not entirely approve of his ways but we get to understand exactly what he's going through. The title of the movie was derived from the word "extraordinary rendition" which was a term used frequently during the Clinton administration when the government abducts possible terrorists or conspirators to terrorist plots and to screw around with their civil liberties. What contrasts this movie from its closest rival Stephen Gaghan's "Syriana" is that neither the liberal or conservative cabinets garner any innocence behind their motives. But in Gavin Hood's "Rendition", has a biased perspective that the only good characters are those who oppose torture and persecution. It even goes so far as if anyone who reads about the torture and persecution of supposed innocent suspects are surely to make this world a better place. To me that's a working of pure fantasy.

Rendition is one scary movie. It's scary because I believe what happened to the central character can happen to anyone.Jake Gyllenhaal plays CIA analyst Douglas Freeman. While in North Africa, a suicide bomber strikes, killing 19 people instead of the person the bomb was intended to kill, an interrogator named Abasi.Though Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is a successful chemical engineer living in Chicago with his wife and son, he is detained when he tries to leave for the U.S. after a conference. It turns out that there are telephone records that show a terrorist, Rashid, called his cell phone. Anwar doesn't know anything about it.Anwar is taken to a detention center. His pregnant wife (Reese Witherspoon) doesn't know what happened to him. She calls on a friend of hers in government, but ultimately, he is stonewalled and his boss orders him to let it go.Freeman is asked to observe the interrogation of Anwar by Abasi. Anwar is tortured, but still doesn't know anything. Ultimately he talks -- he gives the names of men on a soccer team as his accomplices in bomb-making and says he was paid $40,000 by Rashid. Freeman realizes that it's a fake confession. But what can he do to help him? There is a parallel story, of Abasi's daughter Fatima who has left home with her boyfriend Khalid. She doesn't know that he is a terrorist and that Abasi is responsible for the death of his brother.The question is asked - is it ever right to torture? Will it only serve to elicit false confessions? And Freeman asks what useful intelligence has ever come out of these interrogations. Meanwhile, back home, even though the United States doesn't torture people, it instead lets other people torture American citizens.Meryl Streep has a supporting role, and she does a good job as a cold bitch. I thought Reese Witherspoon was terrific in a very emotional role, and the rest of the acting was solid. Some of the scenes were too graphic for me to watch.I think one of the reviews on here says it all. It's from an Egyptian man now living in the U.S. who was detained. What happened in this film could easily have happened to him. And it could happen to anyone with the wrong last name.I know Homeland Security was set up to protect us, and it's a good thing to have the various governmental organizations communicating with one another. And it seems to me that they've stopped quite a few attacks. However, the flip side is that now the police or anyone in authority can accuse you of terrorism just because they don't like you. I had a brush with it myself, so I know of what I speak.It's not a great film, but it made its point.

Totally agree with some of the reviews for this movie. about an hour into it I just asked myself "what am i watching?" i didn't continue the movie after that i was so bored and the dialog was so slow and had no meaning to it that i just couldn't watch any longer. i read the spoilers reviews and i am glad i didn't watch the rest of it. most of the acting was really dull too everyone trying to be dead eyed and serious especially the main character and it just seemed out of place with no real back round other than hes an analyst. also i did not really care what happened to the prisoner character even though he has a family because they never showed him with his family. so in all i just did not feel this movie other than being super bored.

WOW having seen the movie recently I was amazed throughout the movie, it had emotions, thrills, drama and characters you care for.Was that really Reese Witherspoon?? She acted brilliantly and so did every actor in the movie, ensemble was really good and had good chemistry between them. I was shocked with the ending, the flow of the movie was nonlinear but not for 1 second did I felt it was nonlinear, great editing.Final Analysis:1. Story - 8/102. Acting - 8/103. Thrill - 9/104. Score - 7/105. Direction and Cinematography - 8/10