Rendition

 Today’s post is from June at Schimelpfenig Library:

 

Rendition (2007) directed by Gavin Hood

During the Clinton administration, the CIA initiated a program called extraordinary rendition.  The implementation of this procedure allowed the CIA to apprehend suspected terrorists and transport them globally to unidentified, covert locations in order to elicit information from them.

In Rendition a resident Egyptian, who is married to an American woman, mysteriously disappears on his flight from Egypt to Washington, D.C.  He is accosted at the airport and whisked away, against his will, to an undisclosed location in Egypt.  Ostensibly, his only “crime” is being in the wrong place at the wrong time.  The authorities view his plight differently.

Reese Witherspoon plays the role of the distraught wife who enlists the help of a senatorial aide.  The plot heats up once the politicos get involved, and the remainder of the movie is both thrilling and unnerving.

One of the special features on this DVD includes a documentary which contains interviews with two people who were victims of rendition.  The documentary also contains comments by the CIA agent who drafted the extraordinary rendition program.

The whole rendition concept was an eye-opener for me.  I could vaguely hear in my head the sound byte which insists that the United States does not practice torture; however it would appear that we outsource it. Rendition stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, and Peter Sarsgaard.