Rating summary

Movie		4.5
Video		5.0
Audio		4.0
Extras		4.0
Overall		4.5

Rendition Blu-ray Movie Review

Crisis of Conscience

Reviewed by Michael Reuben June 13, 2013

Ever since winning the 2006 best foreign language Oscar with his dazzling Tsotsi, South African director Gavin Hood has worked in mainstream Hollywood. His first venture in American films grew from the same sense of urgent social engagement that Hood brought to his adaptation of author Athol Fugard's novel about a young hoodlum struggling to survive in the slums of Johannesburg. Shaped in the form of a thriller, Rendition harkened back to a Seventies style of filmmaking, where current events and concerns were filtered through a semi-realistic drama that gave faces and voices to abstract concepts. (Think 3 Days of the Condor, Serpico or, for those who remember it, The Big Fix.)

Unfortunately for Hood and his collaborators, Rendition appeared at a time when viewers were so overdosed on news and opinions about the "war on terror" that they weren't interested in hearing about it at the movies as well. Like every other fiction film about the aftermath of 9/11, Rendition died at the box office (although it did somewhat better abroad). Not until 2012 was the losing streak broken with Zero Dark Thirty, probably because that film offered some sense of light at the end of the tunnel. (While The Hurt Locker won awards, it didn't fill theaters.)

But Rendition is worth a second look. For one thing, it's exceptionally well-made, with solid performances, first-rate production values and an intricately plotted script that is careful not to create easy targets or cardboard villains. Kelley Sane's screenplay allots every point of view a fully rounded, credible human representative, even those who authorize and conduct interrogations by torture. (No hairs are split about the definition of the word, nor could they be, given what's shown.) The CIA officer in charge of the rendition program is played by perhaps the most credible American actor alive today, Meryl Streep, and the program itself is clearly identified as a pre-9/11 creation by the administration of Bill Clinton. (Unless I missed it, neither George W. Bush nor any official who served under him is mentioned.)

More importantly, though, times have changed. I am writing this review during a week when the news has been filled with reports of a CIA contractor who blew the whistle on government data-gathering activities. The program that has been disclosed may be less lurid than the practices dramatized in Rendition, but the whistle-blowing parallels one of the film's plot turns with remarkable similarity. The ferocity of reaction to the disclosure suggests a new willingness to examine government measures taken in the name of public safety. Ultimately, the public may approve of those measures, but first it has to know exactly what it's approving.

Director Hood and his editor, Megan Gill, worked carefully to balance the film's large cast and multiple locales so that, for all of its topicality, Rendition plays like a genuine thriller. In the discussion that follows, I have tried not to give away anything.

Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metawally), an Egyptian national, is a resident alien with a green card, who lives in Chicago with his wife, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), a U.S. citizen, his mother (Rosie Malek-Yonan) and their son, Jeremy (Aramis Knight). Isabella is pregnant with their second child. Anwar makes a good living as a chemical engineer, and as the film opens, he is leaving a conference in South Africa at which he was invited to speak. However, when Isabella and Jeremy go to meet him at the airport, he isn't on the plane.

After Anwar left Capetown, a terrorist bomb exploded in the capital of a fictional country called, simply, "North Africa". (In his commentary, Hood explains that a fictional country was used so that no member of the overseas crew would face criticism or reprisals in his home country when the film was released.) One American was killed, which makes the incident a priority for the U.S. Records show that a cell phone believed to belong to a terrorist, Rashid (Omar Salim), known to be a key member of the group claiming credit for the bomb was used to call Anwar's number several times. As a result, Anwar is detained in Washington, D.C., interrogated in handcuffs by a CIA officer, Lee Mayer (J.K. Simmons) and given a polygraph. Mayer reports to his superior, Corinne Whitman (Streep), that Anwar passed the polygraph, and no one seems interested in him. "I'm interested", she replies, and orders that Anwar be put on a plane to North Africa for interrogation outside the U.S. under the program known as "extraordinary rendition".

The acting head of the CIA station in North Africa is Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), an analyst with no field experience. His usual contact, a minister named Said (Simon Abkarian), expresses concern when he learns that Freeman will be the one observing Anwar's interrogation. "Maybe I'll finally get a chance to use my gun", says Freeman, affecting a tough exterior. His job is nothing more than to deliver a list of questions that his bosses in Washington want answered, then sit back. But Freeman discovers that he cannot remain a passive observer. The toll of the experience shows in his private life, where he begins to pull away from everyone and isolate himself.

The interrogator is the head of North Africa's secret police, Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor). An intense and serious man, he is not a wild-eyed sadist. He regards interrogations under torture as "work" and conducts them calmly and deliberately. He believes that he is protecting his country from evil men, and when he senses Freeman's revulsion, Fawal shows him a working model of a suicide bomber's vest, rigged with nails and other shrapnel for maximum carnage. Against such an enemy, Fawal believes, all methods are justified.

Fawal's own household is not immune from the forces he deals with at work. A traditional Arab patriarch, he has chosen what he considers a suitable husband for his elder daughter, Fatima (Zineb Oukach), a university student, but she wants to make her own choice. In what Hood calls "the Romeo and Juliet story" of the film, Fatima has fallen in love with Khalid (Moa Khouas), a fellow student. It is through Khalid's eyes that Rendition presents the powerful recruitment efforts directed at impressionable young men by jihadist groups in revolt against both the existing government and their American backers. Khalid is well aware of who Fatima's father is and assures his radical-leaning friends that she is not like her father, but his loyalties are divided. Meanwhile, Fatima must stay with her aunt (Nara Ziv) to avoid her father's wrath.

Rendition plays out on three fronts. The first is Washington, D.C., where a desperate Isabella looks up an old college boyfriend, Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard), now a top aide to Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin) on the Foreign Affairs Committee with sufficient access to Corinne Whitman to deduce that Isabella's husband has been dropped into the black hole of the rendition program. The point of these scenes is the opacity of the program to the average citizen, including family members of anyone who has been "rendered" to a foreign nation.

The second front is Anwar's increasingly brutal incarceration and interrogation, which is portrayed with just enough detail to be disturbing without becoming sensationalist. Endless questions arise from these sequences. Are we as a society willing to permit such practices to be conducted for the sake of our safety? If so, what is the standard? Are a few questionable phone records in an otherwise ordinary and blameless life sufficient to justify irreparably damaging someone's mind and body? Who decides which persons deserve to be tortured? Who provides oversight? Who reviews the evidence? Who checks for mistakes? And then there's the question that Freeman ultimately asks: How much reliable information has rendition actually produced?

The third front follows Fatima and Khalid as they meet in secret and encounter various people. It is here among the city's population that we end up learning much more about the terrorist bombing than either the CIA in their cubicles or the North African secret police in their interrogation rooms.

Rendition Blu-ray Movie, Video Quality 

Rendition was shot by Oscar-winning cinematographer Dion Beebe (Memoirs of a Geisha), who worked closely with director Hood to develop specific visual styles for the various locales, as described in Hood's commentary. Finished on a digital intermediate, the film arrives on Blu-ray in a 1080p, AVC-encoded presentation whose sumptuous appearance presents an ironic contrast with the frequently grim subject matter.

Sharpness and detail are superior throughout, so that, for example, in the Morocco locations the fine textures of buildings, faces, clothing and landscapes can be discerned even in long and medium shots. Black are deep and true, which becomes crucial in, e.g., an important nighttime sequence in a shipyard late in the film. Colors range from the chilly blues and grays of Washington to the warmer earth tones of the El-Ibrahimi home to the hot siennas and ochres of North Africa; the sole exception is Anwar's prison, where darkness prevails.

As with most films finished on a DI, there is almost no visible grain, but this is inherent in the source (assuming that, as is customary, the source was the DI). High-frequency filtering, artificial sharpening, compression and other artifacts were nowhere to be seen in the moving image.

Rendition Blu-ray Movie, Audio Quality 

Rendition's soundtrack, presented in lossless DTS-HD MA 5.1, isn't showy, but it's powerful and effective. Each of the film's different environments has a subtle but distinctive presence that, together with its color scheme, helps differentiate it and orient the viewer as the story shifts among the locales. The streets of the city are alive with the sounds of pedestrians, mopeds, automobiles, peddlers and chatter. The corridors of power are hushed except for the click of keyboards, the ring of phones and the rush of ventilation. The lower levels of the prison are full of eerie echoes, sudden silence and just-as-sudden loud noises.

The dialogue, which is primarily English with some subtitled Arabic, is generally very clear, although a few of the Arabic actors speak English with thick accents. For scoring duties, Hood turned once again to his Tsotsi composers, Paul Hepker and Mark Kilian, who supplied a suitably atmospheric sound, using Middle Eastern instruments and harmonics that provide a mournful and ultimately tragic undercurrent.

Rendition Blu-ray Movie, Special Features and Extras 

The extras have been ported over from the 2008 DVD.

• Commentary with Director Gavin Hood: Hood is judicious and articulate, alternating between story points and the various considerations that he and his collaborators debated in choosing what to show and what to omit (e.g., what interrogation methods would be used), and technical discussions of his directorial technique, including visual style and working with actors. He has distinct preferences that may not be immediately obvious on a first viewing of Rendition but distinguish it from many contemporary films. Among other things, he prefers placing the camera and composing a shot to the constantly roving style that is now almost standard practice. He also prefers lining up shots so that the camera looks into actors' eyes wherever possible; this preference no doubt results from his roots as an actor.



• Outlawed (480i; 1.33:1; 27:42): Introduced by Hood, who requested that it be included on the DVD of Rendition, this short documentary released in 2006 by the non-profit Witness.Org was a used as resource by the filmmakers. It focuses on the cases of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen seized on vacation and held for seventeen months in Macedonia and Afghanistan before being released; and Binyam Mohamed, an Ethiopian national and UK resident held in Guantanamo.



• Intersections: The Making of Rendition (1080i; 1.78:1; 30:08): An unusually detailed behind-the-scenes documentary that focuses more on production logistics than on the actors. Snippets of interviews with Streep, Witherspoon, Sarsgaard, Metwally and other cast members are included, but more time is devoted to comments by Hood, Beebe, producers Marcus Viscidi and Steve Golin and various assistant directors and other crew. The first part covers shooting in Washingon, D.C., while the second (and much longer) part details the tricky logistics of shooting in the narrow and winding streets of Marakesh and preparing the elaborate but crucial scene of the terrorist bombing (with 500 extras) that drives the plot.



• Deleted/Alternate Scenes with Optional Commentary by Gavin Hood (480i; 2.35:1, enhanced; 18:28): As Hood explains, these trims were made for both running time and focus. None of them alter the story or reveal hidden layers to any character. The "alternate ending" simply adds a brief telephone call before the existing ending.
• Phone Call Subplot
• Madrasta
• Fake Escape
• Extended Prison Escape
• Alternate Ending



• Theatrical Trailer (1080p; 2.35:1; 2:34): One of the rare trailers that leaves most of the film's key events for the viewer to discover.

Rendition Blu-ray Movie, Overall Score and Recommendation 

After Rendition, Hood directed the more commercial (and commercially successful) X-Men Origins: Wolverine. After some TV work, he is now completing the much-anticipated Ender's Game. Good filmmakers adapt to their times, and Hood is a storyteller first and foremost, which is why Rendition ranks near the top of the "issue" films that dealt with the war on terror. One can only hope that the public will once again become interested in such films, if not on movie screens, then on pay cable, so that a talent like Hood will have further chances to apply his skills to urgent topics of the day. It's the rare filmmaker who can bring such thoughtful passion to a divisive subject. Highly recommended.