At two hours it's a tad overlong and slower than it ought to be for its own good but this political thriller about international terrorism is, at least, intelligent if short of thrills. "Rendition" opened in 2007 to less than enthusiastic reviews though it was clearly a prestige production; you only had to look at the cast list to figure that out. Jake Gyllenhaal is the CIA operative with a conscience, Reese Witherspoon, the wife of a man suspected of being a terrorist, Meryl Streep a bitchy senior CIA official, Alan Arkin a senator, Peter Sarsgaard the senator's assistant with the hots for Witherspoon and J.K. Simmons in his pre-Oscar days when he was just a good character actor.
Of course, it's obvious we're meant to read more into this than if it were a 'mere' mad bomber kind of political thriller. We're meant to view this with a liberal conscience and to see the 'good' guys as being as culpable as the bad guys and where it's as hard to tell the heroes from the villains. It's certainly not a bad movie and it's very handsomely photographed by the great Dion Bebee but it's also a little on the obvious side with all the expected tropes firmly in place together with a slightly unnecessary 'twist' in the tail making it a good film rather than a potentially great one.
Of course, it's obvious we're meant to read more into this than if it were a 'mere' mad bomber kind of political thriller. We're meant to view this with a liberal conscience and to see the 'good' guys as being as culpable as the bad guys and where it's as hard to tell the heroes from the villains. It's certainly not a bad movie and it's very handsomely photographed by the great Dion Bebee but it's also a little on the obvious side with all the expected tropes firmly in place together with a slightly unnecessary 'twist' in the tail making it a good film rather than a potentially great one.
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