Sunday, October 21, 2007

"Rendition" (2007) - Movie Review

The problems of interrogation and the means to attain the information may have benefited several thousands of lives but is it really solving the issue currently at hand? With a fragrance of evidence about Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an Egyptian who is married to an American Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) is detained at the airport during his return from South Africa. He is interrogated without any presence of lawyers by the CIA and then he is sent to North Africa covertly for further interrogation.

“He passed the polygraph” says Lee Mayer (J.K. Simmons) and comes reply from his superior Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep) saying it is not a fool proof test. Mayer says that we think about it only when some one passes it. Honest to the story that is how convenient they turn them into this option of extracting the “truth”. Anwar is clean as a crystal but he cannot explain the calls he received from a guy he denies knowing calls from a man named Rashid who is responsible for the blasts which killed one American and several others. The terrible bomb blast which took the life of Douglas Freeman’s (Jake Gyllenhaal) colleague which puts the interim in charge for the CIA operations in North Africa i.e. to stand helpless to witness the interrogation.

Kelly Sane’s screenplay tempts to conclude on Anwar at various moments. In fact we strongly at very many instances doubt the veracity of his statements. He denies and accepts certain basic information. The film does not get us to resolve on the issue but to be a statement. Is the circle of torture really solving the issue or creating future suicide bombers? Do they pat themselves on making some one to give up information or create something just to escape of this brutal mechanism of visceral and psychological torture? The film does not offer solution but an announcement on what exactly this leads to. May be the fear the terror plots have manifested has taken the intelligence and the people too far to trust and believe any one. Also, how come the violence imposed upon them puts them in right when the people whom they are doing this are alleged upon murders and bloodiness. What is the baseline of morality or value gets detained out here?

Megan Gill’s editing renders itself in to these different characters entangled in the center of the bomb blast. I will not reveal much but the editing provides a path breaking resolve to this multiple story lines. Let me say that it has invented a new form of handling and playing with the time line for a story.

There is no definition of the cause or aim of the terrorist group which is being shown. They are Muslims as how much there has been a fear generated now a day. They show how the concept of religion and god, being manipulated over the young minds harbouring those for solace in “brave” fashion as opposed to let them out to cherish their liveliness. Any act of violence on the basis of anything at all comes as a selfish solution to quench their angst of feeling better. The realities disappear and the time and energy spent upon on to sharpen their rage could have been applied for a way out of the misery.

“Rendition” does not answer some of the questions but there is a right of privacy in those corners. Or may be it is the flimsiness of the intelligence being handled to base something on different hundred things of possibilities. With a multitude of cast members, it is a team performance as such in supporting or anchoring the role of others. But as a personal choice, Jake Gyllenhaal gives one another character of recognition. As Douglas, he has the worst day in his life. From an analyst of information he gets himself into the witness of torture mechanism implied by Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor) mercilessly. He knows the job and the drill. He is still coping up with the trauma of the bomb blast. Gyllenhaal at any point does not let him loose and expose this character open wide. He carefully consoles himself in dissolving in the hookah or wandering clueless. He gets the call from Corrine and she asks whether he is new to the role. He says, “This is my first torture”. He says on the front of him as a person and for the circumstances he is in. Not every one takes a job of certain position to decide some one else’s life which might in turn affect many others. Here he doubts Anwar and he has the reason. But does it really bring for a method so cruel to get the information is what nudges him consistently?

As the stories come for a rendezvous within itself, the adrenaline director Gavin Hood pumps in us is fascinating. It is not a chase scene but there are lives at stake. But the camera work and the editing is enough to kick us off. At certain point in the film, we give up for a happy ending as there seem to be no end to this circle. The jobs CIA doing are as they say to save lives and the terrorist march on as an individual, Khalid (Mohammed Khouas) foolishly. What every one does not think is the surrounding lives they affect in the process. The right way seem to be not the current solution in the scenario they give, but after twenty to thirty years, when the next generation looks back to ask why they did not do the right thing, there might be lots of guilty faces.

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