Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), is a chemical engineer who lives in Chicago with his pregnant wife, Isabella (brilliantly played by Reese Witherspoon) and their son. He is not a United States citizen, he is Egyptian, but he has a green card. He moved to America when he was fourteen and he is an NYU graduate. We see him in Cape Town, South Africa, where he is meant to board a flight home. He disappears and the records of his attendance on the flight were erased. His wife is left in the dark, she waits for him at Arrivals, and he doesn’t arrive.

She has no answers. She is told that he never got onto that flight home but she has proof that her husband was on the flight, as he made a duty-free purchase using his credit card while in the air. Anwar had been receiving cell phone calls from a terrorist, and has been captured by the CIA, although there is an idea that his name is being confused with someone else. He aces the lie detector test, has no priors and lives a normal American life. This seems to be irrelevant as he is then put on a plane and sent to a country in North Africa. Here is tortured by an expert, with the expectation that he will crack under the pressure. He doesn’t. So the torturing doesn’t stop.

Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) doesn’t think this is the best way to go. But he is under instruction to observe silently. This kidnapping sets up everything else in the film. Isabella contacts and old friend (Peter Sarsgaard) who happens to be an aide for a senator (Alan Arkin) who has a considerable amount of influence. The senator believes that Anwar is innocent, and approaches Corinne Whitman, the head of CIA Intelligence, and provides his opinion. She gives him a flawlessly coy response and he immediately backs off when he realizes that his interference could negatively impact on a bill he is trying to get passed. Douglas Freeman is given the responsibility to work hand in hand with the torturer when his boss what killed when a bomb exploded in the city square that was meant for the torturer Abasi.

He does so in a way that we know he has a strong sense of duty. We later find out he has more moral duty than duty towards the CIA when he gets a document saying Anwar can be released signed, as he really believes Anwar is innocent, he knows the only reason Anwar confessed was to stop the torturing, and the “information” he gave Abasi was false.

Abasi’s daughter, Fatima, falls in love with a student that goes to school with her, but her father does not approve of Khalid. We later discover that Khalid is responsible for the bomb explosion that occurred early on in the film. Fatima dies as well.

Everything is tied together in a surprising and intelligent way that I didn’t expect. Gavin Hood (Tsotsi) takes on this powerful thriller with little experience, and the result is a story that gives a face to terrorism, and the CIA, and the idea that neither are fully understood. It shows how we as people are losing faith, and perhaps were are correct in believing that we have no idea where we stand in between the authorities and terrorism, and perhaps never will.

The performances are good, genuine and stay with you long after the credits roll. It was not enough to save the flawed film, good performances mean nothing if the characters are not well thought out by the director or writer. A non-American director tackling the issue is a positive though; it gave voice to the many people who too believe the United States authorities as being a law unto themselves and how they never step up to the plate and tell the truth, after all they feel that they have control over everything. “Rendition” made for a thought provoking, well acted, that with a more experienced director controlling it, could have been a force to be reckoned with.

Fatac Rating: **½

Rendition. Directed by Gavin Hood, written by Kelley Sane, staring Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Jake Gyllenhaal, J.K. Simmons, Omar Metwally and Peter Sarsgaard. Running Time: 120 minutes. Age Restriction: 16LV. Rating out of five stars.

Released in South Africa on the 2nd of November 2007.
Viewed at a public screening with an audience of ordinary moviegoers.