Rendition movie review & film summary (2007)

The movie sets into motion a chain of events caused by the illegal kidnapping. Isabella, played by Witherspoon with single-minded determination and love, contacts an old boyfriend (Peter Sarsgaard) who is now an aide to a powerful senator (Alan Arkin). Convinced the missing man is innocent, the senator intervenes with the head of U.S. intelligence (Meryl Streep). She responds in flawless neocon-speak, simultaneously using terrorism as an excuse for terrorism and threatening the senator with political suicide. Arkin backs off.

Meanwhile, in the unnamed foreign country, we meet a CIA pencil-pusher named Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), who has little experience in field work but has taken over the post after the assassination of his boss. His job is to work with and "supervise" the torturer Abasi. This he does with no enthusiasm but from a sense of duty. He is not cut out for this kind of work, drinks too much, broods, has discussions with Abasi, who is an intelligent man and not a monster.

How this all plays out has much to do with Abasi's daughter, Fatima (Zineb Oukach), who is secretly in love with a fellow student not approved of by her family. All these human strands, seemingly so separated, eventually weave into the same rope, in a film that builds its suspense by the uncoiling of personalities.

It is now so well-established that the United States authorizes the practices shown in this film that when President Bush goes on television to blandly deny it with his "who, we?" little-boy innocence, I feel saddened. He may eventually be the last person to believe himself. What the film documents is that we have lost faith in due process and the rule of law, and have forfeited the moral high ground. Reading some of the reviews after I saw this film at the Toronto Film Festival, I was struck by a comment by James Rocchi on Cinematical.com: "Anytime someone tells you that you can't make an omelet without breaking eggs, immediately demand to see the omelet."