"Rendition" joined the ranks of (in my view) way too many new releases on the same weekend, resulting in diluted box office sales, and to some extent, a number of fairly good films that may be slipping between some mediocre ones; "Rendition" struck me as one of the former.
CIA analyst Doug is riding through a town in the Middle East when a suicide bomber blows the place up, attempting to kill Abasi; he gets away. Meanwhile, family man Anwar flies from South Africa home to Chicago, but is stopped at his connection point by U.S. officials and taken out of the country to be interrogated and tortured as a terrorist. Abasi does the interrogation as Doug observes, having been temporarily put in charge of his bureau after the bureau chief was killed in the bombing.
Abasi is also having problem at home, too -- his daughter Fatima is missing, last known to be running around with Khalid. Khalid has taken up with a terrorist cell, and they plot the assassination of Abasi (hence his relationship with Fatima is to get closer to dad, it seems).
So, yes, lots going on, and to make it a bit more interesting, there's a wrinkle in the storyline. That doesn't strike me as a plot device you'd consider a movie spoiler, though -- rather something to be aware of as you watch. (Toward the end, we were sitting there with the "Huh?" look for a few minutes.) Maybe not so much as a time wrinkle as a fold; the opening scene is then re-enacted toward the latter part, however, it didn't strike me as having been done in the usual way of using the film to now explain why the opening scene occurred.
Needless to say, Anwar's wife (Reese Witherspoon) Isabella doesn't have an easy time getting answers from the CIA and other officials ordering Anwar's disappearance. Anwar (Omar Metwally) isn't too common a face to the big screen as many of the other cast members, but his lack of extensive exposure doesn't pose any limitations to the range of what his character portrays during the life of the film (father and husband, businessman, a tortured POW).
I don't know that I would necessarily consider it an Oscar-quality film, but it has that ideal mix of a good script, good acting led by decent directing, and it progresses at a good pace. And with the upcoming releases this weekend being particularly light (just two films), there's plenty of time to catch up on the better films you may have missed last weekend.
Entertainment News International (ENI) is the popular culture network for fans all around the world. Get the scoop on all the popular comics, games, movies, toys, and more every day!
