Review of Rendition (2007) by Andrew B — 14 Oct 2009

I have a lot of mixed emotions about this film. The message is an overly strong and controversial one that I feel is important and has been at the core of politics over the past fifteen years and especially now with findings of Canadian torture of Afganistan prisoners over the past years as well the message speaks out clearly - that torture in all shapes and forms is just plain wrong... however, I still feel that this movie lacked something and I'm having a hard time placing what that something is... the movie held a star-studded cast; but not one single cast member actually stuck out as memorable... even Meryl Streep's star seemed to fade a little; and I have never had a bad thing to say about Peter Saarsgard, but I just wasn't that impressed with his performance either. Maybe I wasn't paying too close attention to the film - although I thought it held my full attention; because the timeline near the end seemed to jump and definitely confused me a lot more than help rectify the answers to the problems that had been created.

Overall Gavin Hood made a fragmented and jumpy movie because I feel that he tried to put it together too fast and didn't take the time to have the script re-written, which could have made this movie an actual success.

I really really really want to love this movie; but I can't because it was poorly put together - but at the same time - I still want to sit down and watch it again because I feel that it deserves a second watch and that the message - which is loud and clear from the beginning - is one that our Western nations need to actually follow.