The film is about a CIA agent in the Middle East. It appears that this man began doubting his last assignment after watching an unconventional interrogation. It appears strange interrogation at a secret detention facility outside the United States.
That it's embarrassingly plausible, that it depicts things that have happened and that are probably still happening, is enough to make Americans sick to their stomach.
But Rendition, in the end, is a Lifetime movie with pretensions toward being a political thriller. (They could even call it YOU HAVE MY HUSBAND! since Witherspoon shrieks that at Streep in a ludicrous scene.)
Designed to make us feel like we've just witnessed a powerful experience. The reality of the film is that it's nothing but a shallow and underdeveloped position paper.
If these new, allegedly topical movies are to make us feel anything -- to move us toward any action or even just toward any fresh realization -- they need to at least seem alive on the screen, instead of just courting our polite, measured applause.
Rendition, while engrossing, does not grab us as it should.
Paste Magazine
July 31, 2008
Rather then telling a story with characters growing and exploring the politics of the world around them, they simply take up the roles of well-dictated automatons.
What finally gives Rendition its headlong narrative momentum is the sense that we're rarely certain what argument the filmmakers are endorsing.
Toronto Star
October 19, 2007
It's one thing for a thriller to be timely, quite another for it to function as Rendition does, a gripping piece of entertainment with a clear head on its shoulders.
