Rendition

    1 of 1 2 of 1

      Starring Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, and Omar Metwally. Rated 14A. Opens Friday, October 19, at the Fifth Avenue Cinemas

      In Rendition, the U.S.-ordered abduction and torture of an Arab-American should be disturbing . It isn't.

      Before 9/11, it may have been surprising to learn that the U.S. government sent terror suspects to countries that practised torture, in order to extract intelligence without getting their hands dirty. This tactic, known as "extraordinary rendition", is a legacy of former president Bill Clinton's administration.

      But after the scandals surrounding Abu Ghraib and Maher Arar, it's hardly a news flash that George W. Bush's guys can be goons. Hence Rendition, directed by Gavin Hood of the Oscar-winning South African film Tsotsi, poses a question so naive that it's almost predrained of drama. What if an innocent Arab-American was sent overseas and tortured? Wouldn't that be, like, bad?

      The Arab-American is Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), an engineer en route home from South Africa when he's nabbed for off-shore rendering. The reason given is that calls to his cellphone were traced to the mastermind of a bombing in North Africa that killed the partner of CIA analyst Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal). But no explanation gets to El-Ibrahimi's wife, Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), shown pregnant and playing soccer with their son, the better to underscore her saintliness.

      While Isabella petitions an old flame in the Senate (Peter Sarsgaard, playing the only character blessed with a shade of grey) for help finding her husband, and he, in turn, petitions a chilly higher-up (Meryl Streep), Freeman is in North Africa supervising El-Ibrahimi's torture and drinking his conscience away. (A subplot about an Arab girl running off with a boy asks us to care about non-American Arabs, too, but only when they're innocent and pretty.)

      Never mind that U.S. officials aren't present here during the torture. What's more egregious is that the torture has been sanitized, and that Isabella runs around proclaiming her husband's innocence because she "knows" him. If only this movie had made El-Ibrahimi a more intriguing character: then the question of whether or not torture is justified would get interesting.

      However, we'd still have to watch Witherspoon and Gyllenhaal mope for two hours. And where's the justice in that?

      Comments