“Rendition” feels like an issue first, movie second, as though the filmmakers’ need to dramatize a vital subject outran a good story. The issue is a hot-button item, for sure, even if the Supreme Court just two weeks ago declined to hear the case of a German man who suffered a similar fate as the movie’s protagonist.
The film’s fictional scenario puts an Egyptian-born man (Omar Metwally, from “Munich”) in the hands of U.S. authorities after he gets off a flight from Africa. He’s on his way home to Chicago, where he lives with his American wife (Reese Witherspoon).
A red flag pops up on a computer somewhere, and the man is quickly made a subject of “extraordinary rendition.” This charming euphemism refers to a policy (begun under the Clinton administration, as the movie points out) whereby a terrorism suspect can be handed over to a country where torture is an accepted interrogation tactic.
So it goes with the suspect, who is whisked off to an unnamed North African locale. A CIA operative (Jake Gyllenhaal), unaccustomed to brutality but a recent first-hand witness to a terrorist bombing, observes the procedure, which looks a great deal like torture.
There might be some gripping stories in here, but “Rendition” spreads itself over too many possibilities. Gyllenhaal’s character could perhaps be the center, or Metwally. For a while, the movie draws some momentum when Witherspoon goes to an old college flame (Peter Sarsgaard) who now works for a senator (Alan Arkin). His dogged efforts at pestering important people are engaging.
There’s more: An anti-terror czar (Meryl Streep), a North African Intelligence agent (Yigal Naor), and his daughter’s suspicious romance. I guess the movie wants to be something like “Traffic,” a multilayered take on the subject.
Problem is, director Gavin Hood (“Totsi”) doesn’t sketch any of these people with depth or originality. When we see Reese Witherspoon pregnant, we know all we need to about the character. Even Streep can’t get anything but a single repeated note into her role.
There is one sequence near the end — when we seem to be seeing a terrorist bombing for the second time, as though the eye-for-an-eye cycle really is just the same bombing over and over again — that suggests a different direction for the movie.
But a cop-out ending ties up the loose ends. If “Rendition” raises an issue for people who haven’t previously thought about it, then good. But a strong documentary probably would do the job with more potency.
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