''Rendition'' is a 2007 American

political Politics () is the set of activities that are associated with decision-making, making decisions in social group, groups, or other forms of power (social and political), power relations among individuals, such as the distribution of Social sta ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre. ...

directed by

Gavin Hood Gavin Hood (born 12 May 1963) is a South African filmmaker, and actor, best known for writing and directing '' Tsotsi'' (2005), which won the Academy Award for Best International Feature Film. He also directed the films '' X-Men Origins: Wolver ...

, and starring

Reese Witherspoon Laura Jeanne Reese Witherspoon (born March 22, 1976) is an American actress and producer. She is the recipient of List of awards and nominations received by Reese Witherspoon, various accolades, including an Academy Award, a Primetime Emmy Aw ...

, Jake Gyllenhaal,

Meryl Streep Mary Louise "Meryl" Streep (born June 22, 1949) is an American actress. Known for her versatility and adept accent work, she has been described as "the best actress of her generation". She has received numerous accolades throughout her career ...

, Peter Sarsgaard,

Alan Arkin Alan Wolf Arkin (March 26, 1934 – June 29, 2023) was an American actor, filmmaker and musician. In a career spanning seven decades, he received numerous accolades, including an Academy Award, a BAFTA Award, a Golden Globe Award, and a Tony A ...

and Omar Metwally. It centers on the controversial

CIA The Central Intelligence Agency (CIA; ) is a civilian foreign intelligence service of the federal government of the United States tasked with advancing national security through collecting and analyzing intelligence from around the world and ...

practice of

extraordinary rendition Extraordinary rendition is a euphemism, euphemistically-named policy of state-sponsored abduction in a foreign jurisdiction and transfer to a third state. The best-known use of extraordinary rendition is in a United States-led program during th ...

and is based on the true story of

Khalid El-Masri Khaled El-Masri (also Khalid El-Masri and Khaled Masri, Levantine Arabic pronunciation: , ) (born 29 June 1963) is a German, Lebanese and French citizen who was mistakenly abducted by the Macedonian police in 2003, and handed over to the U.S. Ce ...

, who was mistaken for

Khalid al-Masri Khalid al-Masri (; other transcriptions: '', , Khaled, El-Masri'' ) is the name of a person alleged to have approached two 9/11 hijackers on a train in Germany and suggested that they contact an alleged al Qaeda operative in Duisburg. The ...

Plot

In North Africa, CIA analyst Douglas Freeman briefs an agent. A

suicide attack A suicide attack (also known by a wide variety of other names, see below) is a deliberate attack in which the perpetrators knowingly sacrifice their own lives as part of the attack. These attacks are a form of murder–suicide that is ofte ...

kills the agent and 18 civilians; the target was high-ranking police official Abbas-i "Abasi" Fawal, a liaison for the United States who conducts interrogations with techniques amounting to torture, but Fawal is unharmed. Egyptian-born Anwar El-Ibrahimi, a chemical engineer living in

Chicago Chicago is the List of municipalities in Illinois, most populous city in the U.S. state of Illinois and in the Midwestern United States. With a population of 2,746,388, as of the 2020 United States census, 2020 census, it is the List of Unite ...

with his mother, his pregnant wife Isabella, and their young son, is believed linked to known terrorist Rashid by records indicating several calls to Anwar's cellphone. Returning from a conference in South Africa, Anwar is detained by American officials and sent to a secret facility near the earlier attack, where he is interrogated and tortured. Isabella is not informed of her husband’s whereabouts, and all official evidence of his being on the plane at

Cape Town International Airport Cape Town International Airport is the primary international airport serving the city of Cape Town, and is the List of South African airports by passenger movements, second-busiest airport in South Africa and List of busiest airports in Afric ...

is erased. Freeman, assigned to observe Anwar’s interrogation by Fawal, is doubtful of Anwar’s guilt, but CIA superior Corrine Whitman insists such treatments are necessary to save potential victims of terrorism. Isabella travels to

Washington, D.C. Washington, D.C., formally the District of Columbia and commonly known as Washington or D.C., is the capital city and federal district of the United States. The city is on the Potomac River, across from Virginia, and shares land borders with ...

to ask friend Alan Smith, an aide to Senator Hawkins, to find her missing husband. Smith informs Isabella that Anwar failed to board the plane in Cape Town, but she shows him her husband's credit card purchase at the in-flight

duty-free shop A duty-free shop or store is a retail outlet whose goods are exempt from the payment of certain local or national taxes and duties, on the requirement that the goods will be sold to travelers who will take them out of the country, who will ...

, confirming he was on the flight. Smith pieces together details of Anwar's detention but is unable to convince Hawkins or Whitman, who ordered the rendition, to release Anwar or acknowledge his imprisonment. Hawkins tells Smith to let the matter go, as public debate on

would complicate the senator’s bill before Congress. His sympathetic secretary tips Isabella off that Whitman will be visiting. Isabella confronts Whitman and Hawkins before being led out by security, only to go into labour in the hallway. Under torture, Anwar eventually confesses that he advised a man named Rashid on chemicals to enhance explosives and was promised $40,000. Freeman suspects a

false confession A false confession is an admission of guilt for a crime which the individual did not commit. Although such confessions seem counterintuitive, they can be made voluntarily, perhaps to protect a third party, or induced through coercive interrogatio ...

, confirmed when the names Anwar gives are traced by

Interpol The International Criminal Police Organization – INTERPOL (abbreviated as ICPO–INTERPOL), commonly known as Interpol ( , ; stylized in allcaps), is an international organization that facilitates worldwide police cooperation and crime cont ...

and draw a blank. A quick

Google Google LLC (, ) is an American multinational corporation and technology company focusing on online advertising, search engine technology, cloud computing, computer software, quantum computing, e-commerce, consumer electronics, and artificial ...

search reveals the names belong to an Egyptian soccer team. Freeman approaches the Minister of the Interior with this finding, questioning why a man with a $200,000 salary would risk his life for $40,000. When discussing the value of intelligence gathered through torture, Freeman quotes from ''

The Merchant of Venice ''The Merchant of Venice'' is a play by William Shakespeare, believed to have been written between 1596 and 1598. A merchant in Venice named Antonio defaults on a large loan taken out on behalf of his dear friend, Bassanio, and provided by a ...

'' by

William Shakespeare William Shakespeare ( 23 April 1564 – 23 April 1616) was an English playwright, poet and actor. He is widely regarded as the greatest writer in the English language and the world's pre-eminent dramatist. He is often called England's nation ...

: "I fear you speak upon the rack, Where men enforced do speak anything." Freeman persuades the minister to release Anwar, sending him back to America via a clandestine ship to Spain, ignoring Whitman's frantic orders to hand Anwar back to Fawal and knowing he will probably be branded as insubordinate. Meanwhile, Smith similarly disregards Hawkins' advice and leaks the torture details to the press, igniting a worldwide scandal and likely ending his political aspirations. Anwar returns home and shares a tearful reunion with Isabella, his son, and their newborn baby.

Sub-plot

In a parallel storyline, Abasi Fawal's daughter Fatima runs away with her boyfriend Khalid. Abasi learns Khalid's late brother was an inmate at his prison. Fatima learns that Khalid belongs to a terrorist group, and discovers a notebook with pictures: Khalid and his brother brandishing

AK-47 The AK-47, officially known as the Avtomat Kalashnikova (; also known as the Kalashnikov or just AK), is an assault rifle that is chambered for the 7.62×39mm cartridge. Developed in the Soviet Union by Russian small-arms designer Mikhail Kala ...

s; a grief-stricken Khalid standing over his brother's corpse; her father; and a statement that Khalid will avenge his brother. Realising that her father, responsible for the death of Khalid's brother, is about to be assassinated by Khalid, she runs to the town square and confronts Khalid. He hesitates, and is killed by the attack’s organizers; he releases the

dead man's switch A dead man's switch is a switch that is designed to be activated or deactivated if the human operator becomes incapacitated, such as through death, loss of consciousness, or being bodily removed from control. Originally applied to switches on a ...

, and Fatima is killed in the explosion at the beginning of the film. Abasi rushes to Khalid's apartment and discovers Khalid's grandmother grieving the loss of her grandsons and Fatima. Abasi realizes his daughter died trying to protect him.

Theory

The phone record implicating Anwar remains unexplained. It is mentioned that phones are often passed off to avoid tracing; the DVD extras explain a subplot on this concept that was cut from the film. Director Gavin Hood stated in an interview that the ambiguity of Anwar’s involvement was deliberate, to let the viewer decide whether the possibility of his guilt justified kidnapping and torture.

Cast

as Isabella Fields El-Ibrahimi * Jake Gyllenhaal as Douglas Freeman *

as Corrine Whitman * Omar Metwally as Anwar El-Ibrahimi *

as Senator Hawkins * Peter Sarsgaard as Alan Smith * Aramis Knight as Jeremy El-Ibrahimi * Rosie Malek-Yonan as Nuru El-Ibrahimi * Moa Khouas as Khalid El-Emin * Zineb Oukach as Fatima Fawal * Yigal Naor as Abasi Fawal * J. K. Simmons as Lee Mayers * Bob Gunton as Lars Whitman * Hadar Ratzon as Safiya * Reymond Amsalem as Layla Fawal * Simon Abkarian as Said Abdel Aziz * Wendy Phillips as Samantha * Laila Mrabti as Lina Fawal * Christian Martin as Senator Lewis' Aide

Reception

Reviews for ''Rendition'' were mixed. On

Metacritic Metacritic is an American website that aggregates reviews of films, television shows, music albums, video games, and formerly books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted average). Metacritic was created ...

, the film averaged a score of 55 based on 34 reviews.

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert ( ; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American Film criticism, film critic, film historian, journalist, essayist, screenwriter and author. He wrote for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. Eber ...

awarded the film four stars out of four, saying, "''Rendition'' is valuable and rare. As I wrote from Toronto: 'It is a movie about the theory and practice of two things: torture and personal responsibility. And it is wise about what is right, and what is wrong.'" In contrast, Peter Travers of ''

Rolling Stone ''Rolling Stone'' is an American monthly magazine that focuses on music, politics, and popular culture. It was founded in San Francisco, California, in 1967 by Jann Wenner and the music critic Ralph J. Gleason. The magazine was first known fo ...

'' applauded the cast, but noted that the film was a "bust as a persuasive drama". Travers declared the film the year's Worst Anti-War Film on his list of the Worst Movies of 2007.

References

External links

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at The Black Commentator {{DEFAULTSORT:Rendition (Film) 2007 films 2000s political thriller films 2000s spy films American nonlinear narrative films Extraordinary rendition program Films set in Egypt Films set in South Africa Films set in Illinois Films directed by Gavin Hood Films about terrorism Films shot in Morocco Films about kidnapping Films about the Central Intelligence Agency Films produced by Steve Golin Hyperlink films New Line Cinema films Anonymous Content films American political thriller films American political drama films 2000s English-language films 2000s American films Films scored by Paul Hepker English-language thriller films