Review of Rendition (2007) by Pim D — 26 Dec 2009

This is well made in the sense that it is well-directed and the acting is fine. However, the writer completely misses the point. Completely. The filmmakers should have watched Ken Loach's â??Hidden Agendaâ?? or Costa-Gavras' â??Missingâ?? to see how to properly tell a story like this.

This is the sanitized Hollywood version. In it, the abductee's wife is white, pretty and pregnant. In it a CIA analyst gets to play hero. In it, the torturers are still virtually completely the â??other,â?? in this case Arabs.

There is a clear bad â??guy,â?? and a clear eventual hero. This is not the way this works, as we well know in Canada, where our citizens have also been subject to such US practices. The way to really make this movie is to make rendition a mystery.

Most people wouldn't have known what it referred to at the time. The torturers need to be de-otherized, i.e., they need to be like regular people, because in real life they are regular people. The attempt to humanize the Egyptian only half-succeeds partly because it introduces a story-arc that isn't necessary (except to provide a coincidence to make the heroic act possible).

This film could have been much, much better.