DVD Mini Review - Rendition
Rendition, Gavin Hood's follow up with his Oscar winning Tsoti, is a good but not great film. However, it is also an important film.
Rendition is best described as when someone is arrested for alleged terrorist activities. These people are takent to secret prisons and tortured. They have no legal representation and are not tried. The United States is one of the greatest proponents of this.
In the film Anwar El-Ibrahim (Omar Metwally) is arrested upon returning to the US from South Africa (even though he lives in the US and is married to an American). His pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) attempts to find out what happened to him. He is taken back to Africa and confined to a prison and tortured. At first American Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) goes along with this. But he eventually comes to realize how horrendous this is.
There is another story thread as well. A young girl - whose father happens to be El-Ibrahim's torturer - falls for a young man who is involved with radical Muslim extremists.
Alan Arkin also stars as a Senator, Peter Sarsgaard is his assitant (and an old friend of Isabella's) and Meryl Streep is the woman behind the torture. Except for Streep and Metwally the acting is nothing special. But the film held my interest from beginning to end.
Included on the DVD is a short documentary about victims of rendition and how it affected them and their families. See this film just to learn more about what is going on. The United States should be ashamed of itself.
Rendition is best described as when someone is arrested for alleged terrorist activities. These people are takent to secret prisons and tortured. They have no legal representation and are not tried. The United States is one of the greatest proponents of this.
In the film Anwar El-Ibrahim (Omar Metwally) is arrested upon returning to the US from South Africa (even though he lives in the US and is married to an American). His pregnant wife Isabella (Reese Witherspoon) attempts to find out what happened to him. He is taken back to Africa and confined to a prison and tortured. At first American Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) goes along with this. But he eventually comes to realize how horrendous this is.
There is another story thread as well. A young girl - whose father happens to be El-Ibrahim's torturer - falls for a young man who is involved with radical Muslim extremists.
Alan Arkin also stars as a Senator, Peter Sarsgaard is his assitant (and an old friend of Isabella's) and Meryl Streep is the woman behind the torture. Except for Streep and Metwally the acting is nothing special. But the film held my interest from beginning to end.
Included on the DVD is a short documentary about victims of rendition and how it affected them and their families. See this film just to learn more about what is going on. The United States should be ashamed of itself.
posted by Film Fanatic | 8:17 PM
0 Comments:
Post a Comment
<< Home