Roger Ebert on the movie "Rendition" [View All]

http://timesunion.com/AspStories/story.asp?storyID=631388&category=ARTS&newsdate=10/19/2007

'Rendition' puts a face on official torture

By ROGER EBERT, Universal Press Syndicate
First published: Friday, October 19, 2007

This is being done in our name. People who are suspected for any reason, or no good reason, of being terrorists can be snatched from their lives and transported to another country to be held without charge and tortured for information. Because the torture is conducted by professionals in those countries, our officials can blandly state, "America does not torture."

Gavin Hood's terrifying, intelligent thriller "Rendition" puts a human face on the practice. We meet Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian-born American chemical engineer who lives in Chicago with his wife, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon). After boarding a flight home from a conference in Cape Town, Anwar disappears from the airplane, his name disappears from the passenger list, and Isabella hears nothing more from him.

He was taken from the plane by the CIA, we learn. His cell phone received calls from a terrorist, or perhaps from someone else with the same name, or perhaps it was stolen or lost and used by somebody else. He passes a lie detector test, but is hooded, flown to an anonymous country, and placed in the hands of an expert torturer named Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor). Anwar is held naked in a dungeon, beaten, nearly drowned, shocked with electricity, kept sleepless, shackled. Does it occur to anybody that he is more likely to "confess" if he is not a terrorist than if he is?

Isabella, played by Reese Witherspoon with single-minded determination and love, contacts an old boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard) who is now an aide to a powerful senator (Alan Arkin). The senator intervenes with the head of U.S. intelligence (Meryl Streep). She responds in flawless neocon-speak, simultaneously using terrorism as an excuse for terrorism, and threatening the senator with political suicide. Arkin backs off.

Meanwhile, in the unnamed foreign country, we meet a CIA pencil-pusher named Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), whose job is to work with and "supervise" the torturer Abasi, who is an intelligent man and not a monster.

All these human strands eventually weave into the same rope, in a film that builds its suspense by the uncoiling of personalities. Gavin Hood, the South African director of "Rendition," first came into wide view with the wonderful "Tsotsi" (2005), which won the Academy Award for best foreign film. Now comes this big, confident, effective thriller with its politics so seamlessly a part of its story. Next for him: "Wolverine," based on the X-Men character. I hope we don't lose him to blockbusters. A film like "Rendition" is valuable and rare.