Jack Keane
Where to begin, as we discuss "Extraordinary Rendition"? Perhaps it might be best to start with the film's positive aspects, and then move onto its negatives. So, here are its PRO's: The performances of the three main leads are quite brilliant. Omar Berdouni - an excellent actor who (with the exception of...say...the big part he played in the first episode of Channel 4's Bernard-Hill-narrated "Ancient Egyptians" several years ago) has of late played numerous characters in 9/11-tinged films (such as "The Kingdom" and two Paul Greengrass films, "United 93" and "Green Zone") and TV shows (notably the BBC drama "Occupation") - plays another character set in a post-9/11 world, only this time is the main focus of the film, instead of a supporting player. From start to finish, Berdouni imbues his thinly written character with enough believability and sympathy for the viewer to care for him as he is plucked from the streets of London, and thrown headfirst into a terrifying and inexplicable situation of endless fear and torture. Berdouni never overdoes it; he keeps his character's emotions cool and calm at the start, and when he is subjected to his horrific ordeal, his anger, frustration and fear can all be seen bubbling under the surface, until cracks start to appear - and when those cracks do break, the result is truly poignant. Ania Sowinski does very well with what little she has to work with, as Berdouni's character's wife. To begin with, her character isn't objectionable at all, and is well above being just a serviceable wife character for the main male protagonist to bounce off of at the film's start. Unfortunately, by the film's end, her character becomes terribly predictable and unreasonably whiny, for reasons that the film never takes the time to explain (if it even has a reason with which to help explain her ultimate behaviour). But the real star of the film, once again becoming a major scene-stealer (even for such a dark role), is Andy Serkis. He plays a haggard, fatigued and despicable interrogator, whose job it is to extract the information he believes Berdouni's character has, but clearly doesn't have. Serkis doesn't play this person as a straight-up evil bad guy - by his own word (which may or may not be true), he's a man with a family, trying to earn his keep through this job that he hates. True to his character's form, he almost makes you think that this might be true, and almost makes Berdouni's character think that he did something to deserve the punishment he goes through. As for the torture scenes, they are as about as horrifying as you might expect. Eventually, the process of having seen so much of this horror played out before your eyes (the most unsettling torture scene being the one involving "dry drowning") leaves the viewer exhausted - probably something the film-makers fully intended. But now for the CON's: As hinted above, the script isn't particularly well fleshed out and written. The characters are mere sketches of proper human beings, leaving the actors to have to try and do the fleshing out themselves. The story is provocative and disturbing, but it lacks the proper hefty dramatic weight needed to make it stick in the mind. As well as that, the structure of the story aims for a Christopher Nolan-esque non-chronological story jumble, which in this film's case makes the proceedings occasionally confusing. There's no real need or reason for this shuffling of story chapters to take place, other than for some stylistic verve. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really have the metaphorical meat on its bones, nor the running time, nor the budget, for this to work properly. The editing, meanwhile, is almost unwatchably choppy. If you've seen the "Transformers" films and think their editing is too slipshod, then prepare to re-evaluate that opinion. And overall, the film feels just far too rushed. Its running time is only 77 minutes! Even an episode of "Sherlock" is longer than this. All through the film, I kept catching myself thinking that a lot of the scenes needed to be slightly longer, to allow the atmosphere of each scene to breath and be fully appreciated. It's hard to explain with words, but if you ever see the film, you'll know what I mean. In the end, it's a film with admirably dark and provocative themes, pulled off with a tiny budget, great acting, and which does what it sets out to do - shock, disturb and make you think. But technically, it could've been done so much better, with a better eye for characters, atmosphere, tension, and drama...
dbborroughs
A man is pulled off a London Street and taken to some foreign country where he is tortured as a terror suspect. Dull, banal film bored the hell out of me. More an idea then a film. I was half way into this 77 minute film when I realized I had no idea who anyone on screen was. It was as if they took every other similar film and pulled out all of the ideas and put them in one place with out the real notion of character. Certainly its well acted with passion but there is no emotional center, there is just an everyman of sorts which the filmmakers feel is enough. Its not. And while the story presented id in theory important as a warning the film is too dull to convince anyone of it, especially if one has seen the other, better films of a similar ilk (rendition with Reese Witherspoon for example)
sddavis63
Life in the post 9/11 world is very complicated. During any time of war, the concept of friends and enemies is always at the forefront, and, although there may at times be some confusion over who fits where, for the most part in wartime friends and enemies are pretty well defined. That easy assumption is thrown out the window by essentially two things - the "war on terrorism" in which the enemy can be defined only by their thoughts rather than by their citizenship and by the complicated demographic nature of the world today where people from all over the world live together, work together and share citizenship with each other. The paranoia that easily grips a society after a horrendous attack - witness the incarceration of thousands of loyal Canadian and American citizens of Japanese descent after the attack on Pearl Harbour - can easily get out of hand. I can remember sitting in a University history course in the mid 1980's when the subject of Japanese detention was being lectured about, and our Professor (a very well known and highly respected first-rate historian) said that we consider such a thing terrible, but that if any such thing occurred again we would immediately start to identify who we thought the enemy was and deal with them - whether they really were the enemy or not. How prophetic.In "Extraordinary Rendition" Zaafir (Omar Berdouni) is a teacher at some level (university I would guess.) He upsets a couple of students by suggesting that there's not much difference between terrorists and freedom fighters, and that democracy is often born out of violence. Those are hardly radical concepts. I've heard it said many times that if the Americans had lost the Revolutionary War, George Washington would today be considered a terrorist. As it is, the United States regards him as a hero because he led them in a violent struggle for independence. These students apparently report him; authorities investigate him and build a case based largely on assumptions and hearsay without any solid evidence, and then pack him off to some unnamed country where he can be tortured into a confession.Although this is a British film, any Canadian will recognize the story of Maher Arar. Arar was a Canadian citizen born in Syria who for some reason attracted the attention of Canadian and American security officials. On a visit to the U.S. Arar was arrested, accused of being a terrorist and deported - not to Canada, where he was a citizen, but to Syria, where he was born. Why? Because in Syria he could be tortured and in Canada he couldn't be. That's extraordinary rendition.The basic story is chillingly told here, showing the happiness of Zaafir's life before all this happened, the horrendous experience he had in captivity and the devastating impact the experience had on him afterward. It's not a spy caper or a thriller. It's a very cold (in some ways) account of what can - and does - happen in today's world. There's really no resolution to the story in the end. We don't know whether Zaafir ever managed to get his life back together. I'm sure that was deliberate. The movie is supposed to leave the viewer thinking and struggling with the issues involved. Benjamin Franklin said "they that can give up essential liberty to obtain a little temporary safety deserve neither liberty nor safety." And Edmund Burke said "the only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing." I think we need to relearn those lessons.The only thing difficult about this movie is that some of it is spoken in rather hushed tones that make some of the dialogue difficult to follow, but the dialogue isn't really all that necessary to follow the story. The pictures say it all. 9/10
