New at BOP: Review: Matrix Resurrections Movie Review: Moonfall Movie Reviews: Scream The #1 Movie in America November Forecast The Many Saints of Newark October Forecast New Trivia Question All site updates Share & Save   Tweet Print this column

Hollywood is a machine. Every week, every month and every year countless films are released into theatres and not every one is as successful as the studio heads would hope. Sometimes the publicity machine was askew, sometimes the movie targeted an odd demographic, sometimes the release was steamrolled by a much larger movie and occasionally the movie is flat out bad.
But Hollywood's loss is our gain. There is a veritable treasure trove of film out there that you may not have seen. I will be your guide to this veritable wilderness of unwatched film. It will be my job to steer you towards the action, adventure, drama and comedy that may have eluded you, and at the same time, steer you away from some truly unwatchable dreck.

Hopefully we'll stumble across some entertainment that may have slid under your radar. Wish us luck.

Rendition (2007)

Yikes.

Rendition is the act of surrendering a suspect to a third party country wherein they are not bound by niceties like the constitution or due process. The suspect is then interrogated by the new host country. And by "interrogated", I mean relentlessly and brutally tortured until he provides "useful" information.

This movie did $14.6 million in box office, and that's downright amazing considering the subject matter. I'm literally astonished that Rendition even got made in the current political climate in the United States.

Rendition stars Jake Gyllenhaal as CIA analyst Douglas Freeman, Omar Metwally as Anwar El-Ibrahimi, Reese Whitherwspoon as Isabella Fields-El-Ibrahimi and Meryl Streep as CIA big shot Corrine Whitman. It's also populated with a pack of unknown but extremely talented character actors of middle eastern decent as the movie plays out two stories in what appears to be parallel.

The first story is the Rendition of Anwar to Egypt for interrogation in regards to a phone call he received. The second story revolves around the Egyptian minister of security and his missing daughter. If you're thinking you read that wrong, you didn't. The primary victim, Anwar, is detained (kidnapped, really...) by American CIA agents, held without access to a lawyer, interrogated in country, then flown to Egypt where the gloves come right off. It's a horrifying premise. Kidnapped and relentlessly tortured for days because of a wrong number.

This is the very definition of a tough movie to watch. Anwar is well played as a decent and loving family man. As the American agents approach him to detain him, they get his attention by telling him he has an important phone call. The first thing that pops into his head isn't, ‘Who are these people?' or ‘Where are they taking me?', his first thought is that something might have happened to his wife Isabella, who is currently in her late third trimester of pregnancy. He is denied a phone call, an act that confuses, then disturbs, then terrifies his wife as she patiently waits for him at the airport.

The second story begins in Egypt with a large explosion. The explosion kills 19 people, including the new operative that Jake Gyllenhaal was about to introduce to the Egyptian security chief. Douglas (Gyllenhaal) is field promoted on the spot and is tasked to get any useful information from the interrogation back to his superiors post haste. This means that he ends up watching most of Anwar's torture up close and personal, and Jake does a very nice job of agonizing over what he's watching.

Unfortunately, you probably won't notice the fine job that Jake is doing, because the filmmakers really didn't pull a whole lot of punches in regard to the torture scenes. Anwar is literally beaten to a pulp in front of you, and Omar Metwally basically plays him as an agonized, desperate man on the brink of bursting into tears at any moment. The only time this rings a little false is one scene between Douglas and Anwar where Anwar chastises Douglas. He's naked, blindfolded and chained to a board that he was literally drowning on a few moments ago, but he's suddenly very aggressive with Douglas. It didn't ring very true at that moment, unlike just about every other interrogation scene in the entire film.

Aside from the fine acting by just about everyone in the film, there isn't a whole lot to recommend. It is literally a tough movie to watch. The torture scenes are disturbing but not gory, so the gore hounds won't be interested. There is little to no action in the film, there are few snappy lines and the writers didn't even attempt to incorporate black humor into the proceedings. This is a straight treatise on how casually our leaders are capable of abusing the Constitution and Bill of Rights and a moral tale on how torture begets nothing but pain for the victim and the inflictor.

There's a lot going on in Rendition. There are some complex plots, some fine acting, characters that are easy to empathize with and some tough decisions to make. One character fails miserably when the moment of truth is thrust upon him, while another surprisingly comes through when his conscience forces him to take action. His actions drag Rendition to what I almost consider a Hollywood ending, and while I am tempted to chide them for taking the easy out, the previous 90 minutes of watching a man beg and scream for mercy made me thankful for it.

So while it's true that Rendition is a tough movie to watch, it's worth doing. There's an important story being told here, and it's not based in a Galaxy far far away. Take some time to absorb this film, then sit back and appreciate the rights that you and your neighbors have just for being born where you were. They seem trivial until you see someone stripped of them, and then they become the most important things you could ever have.