|
“Rendition”
by South African director Gavin Hood (“Tsotsi”), is a muddle of a film
about an extremely important subject: the practice of “extraordinary
rendition.” This refers to the action by the U.S. government in which
people (usually men of Middle-Eastern origin) are snatched off the
streets or from their homes and sent to a distant country (like Egypt,
for instance), where torture plays a distinct part of interrogations.
Gavin
Hood, rather than focusing on this harrowing experience (suffered in
the film by an immigrant from Egypt), introduces a distracting
subplot—that of a North African intelligence officer and his rebellious
daughter.
The
film is based on facts. A number of men have suffered this fate, yet
only two have been released from prisons outside the U.S., after five
months or more without being charged.
In
one case that has received a measure of publicity, Khaled el-Masri, a
German citizen represented by ACLU attorney Ben Wizner, was kidnapped
and sent to a CIA-run “black site” in Afghanistan. He sued the U.S.
government for the injustice against him, but last month the Supreme
Court denied him a hearing—upholding a lower court decision that cited
national security (“state secrets”) as grounds for dismissing the case.
In
“Rendition,” Isabella and Anwar el-Hashimi, played by Reese Witherspoon
and Omar Metwally, have one child and one on the way. Anwar is a legal
immigrant from Egypt living in suburban Chicago, with an American
college degree in chemical engineering; he’s been in the U.S. for 20
years, and his wife is an American citizen.
Returning
home from a business trip to South Africa, he is detained at the
Chicago airport. U.S. officials, after a call to a smug CIA official,
Corrinne Whitman (Meryl Streep, demeaned in a caricature performance),
handcuff and hood Anwar, throw him into a van, and delete his name from
the passenger list.
Anwar
has a similar last name to that of a suspected terrorist behind a
recent suicide bombing. After he is detained, and uncooperative because
he’s innocent, he’s shoved onto a plane and flown to an unnamed foreign
site.
In
an earlier scene, a bustling plaza in a large North African city is
struck by a bomb, killing Dixon, the CIA mentor of junior analyst Doug
Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal). Freeman is told by his CIA superiors that he
is taking Dixon‘s place as their top man in the region.
Undone
by her husband’s disappearance, yet maintaining control, Isabella
enlists the help of an old college boyfriend, Alan Smith (Peter
Saarsgard), who now works as an aide to a U.S. senator (a deft, crisp
Alan Alda). It’s heartbreaking to watch the very pregnant Isabella
traipsing disconsolately through corridors of glass and chrome in a
Washington office building. There, she confronts Whitman together with
the senator. The glacial Whitman brushes Isabella off like an imaginary
speck on her silk blouse, and she is all but hauled away by security
guards.
In
real life, as in the film, most elected officials—Democrats and
Republicans—choose not to deal with the fact that the government
practices “extraordinary rendition,” or that it sanctions torture. It
is in that environment that Bush’s nominee for attorney general,
Michael Mukasey, who refuses to condemn the practice of water-boarding
by the CIA, is being confirmed by the Senate.
In
“Rendition,” a naked, beaten, uncooperative Anwar is tortured by head
intelligence chief, Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor—Telly Salavas on steroids).
The director doesn’t spare us from scenes of water-boarding and
beatings, but films only the excruciating expressions
on
Anwar’s bruised and bloody face as he suffers electric jolts to the
genitals, telegraphed by buzzing sounds.
CIA
agent Freeman reluctantly watches. Without speaking, Gyllenhaal’s eyes
and body language speak volumes. Out of his league after taking Dixon’s
job, he soon has had enough. Using his own creative subterfuge, local
help, and distracted prison officials, he manages Anwar’s release.
“Rendition”
jumps distractingly back and forth among scenes of Isabella’s
unsuccessful attempts at finding Anwar, Fawal running around after his
daughter, and Anwar’s incarceration. To confuse us further, a key scene
close to the end of the film repeats one shown at the start. Only then
do we realize that much of the action we had been watching was a flash
forward in time.
Though
Gavin Hood obviously wanted his film to make a strong statement about
the U.S. practice of “extraordinary rendition,” it doesn’t. No one is
taken to task. The CIA walks away, washing its bloody hands of the
matter.
|