User Reviews

None of the cast seems to be giving great effort here. This is the weakest performance I’ve seen from Gyllenhaal, who usually is the strong part of otherwise middling films like this one. Director Gavin Hood can definitely create suspense even when switching around locations and people (He certainly did that in the underrated Eye in the Sky). Maybe Hood and the actors didn’t connect much with the dull screenplay. I didn’t either.

A decent enough movie that tries to convey an important message but at times drowns in it's political ideology. Shame.

A powerful, political thriller made even more convincing with it's well-teamed cast. The subject matter is contemporary and interesting. Rendition is above these mixed reviews.

It is a politically relevant movie that is all surface and no depth. Mildly entertaining. Weird casting choices and there was nothing flattering about the directional decisions.

This is the story of the aftermath of a terrorist bombing. Rendition shows what happens behind the scenes of tragedy from six different sides and it's a pretty compelling story. I love how unique and eye opening this film is, however they really dumb it down for you. This should be the kind of movie that makes you think, but instead they kind of explain everything in detail to you from beginning to end. The film was very realistic and clear, that is until the ending. They took this intense, believable, behind the scenes film, and gave it an impossible ending which honestly wound up ruining the whole thing for me.

Why did I watch it? I remember thinking that this film looked worth watching when it came out at the cinema. I was interested in the concept of extraordinary rendition and how it could happen. Anyway, five years later I finally got around to watching it. What's it all about? As the title suggests, its all about the controversial CIA practice of moving terror suspects to countries other than the US for interrogation purposes. Jake Gyllenhaal plays a CIA analyst caught up in the rendition of an Egyptian American chemical engineer (same profession as me!) Anwar to a North African country and the hands of the local police chief. At the same time Reese Witherspoon plays the suspects wife, desperately trying to track down her husbands whereabouts after he seemingly disappears during a flight home. Meryl Streep turns up as Gyllenhaal's boss. Should you watch it? Inevitably Rendition poses some questions about the justification of rendition and its breaching of human rights. The film doesn't really answer them either way, especially considering the ambiguous ending. If the screenplay was intending to make a specific point I think I missed it, although if it was being delivered by Gyllenhaal that is hardly surprising. His character is tepid, and that's being kind and seems pretty nonplussed with everything from the off so it was difficult to notice any change in his character after witnessing rendition first hand. At the other end, Witherspoon fares slightly better with her performance as the desperate wife. Screeching aside, it was beneficial to see the impact of rendition and difficulties in finding information from the point of view of the family. To give the screenplay some credit, the intertwining stories of the rendition and the local terrorist cell does create some tension which moves the film along. A fairly run of the mill political thriller with some intriguing plot-lines.

Pretty hard to watch Rendition is one of those movies which glue u up to the chair and u cannot find specific reason for it. It is very slow, and movie time-line is messed up, but all together its good and convincing movie....