The emotionally stirring, politically alert and briskly moving thriller Rendition, about a pregnant wife's fight to know the truth about her husband who has mysteriously disappeared, could have been more hard-hitting.
It could also have had a more credible male protagonist, in this case a male CIA official whose conscience against torture is gradually aroused. And yet the film with all its imperfections asks many pertinent questions about secrecy and torture in the interest of national security. It is gripping for most part and one cannot but cheer the pregnant wife (played superbly by the Oscar-winner Reese Witherspoon) in her fight to unmask a mystery and bring her husband home.
The film will also be remembered for the role the seemingly small people, like a receptionist in a Senator's office, play in doing the right thing.
It is directed by Gavin Hood, the South African whose Tsotsi won the Oscar for best foreign film in 2005. This is his first Hollywood film.
Rendition, which could have cost about $35 million, shows that Hood can handle a relatively big budget film, and yet make sure that it offers genuinely dramatic moments. Not many directors have effectively graduated from a small film to a Hollywood film.
The film, based on an original and tightly drawn screenplay by Kelley Sane, is one of the best 9/11 films.
Hood's film starts with the sudden arrest of an Egyptian-American scientist (played with controlled rage by Omar Metwally) when he arrives at Washington from Cape Town after attending a professional conference. A bomb explosion in an unnamed African city a few hours ago has made him a suspect.
As in the case of other 'extraordinary renditions,' he too is put on a plane and sent to the city where the bombing had taken place. He is being questioned about getting phone calls from a suspected Muslim terrorist. He denies knowing the man and insists it could have been a wrong connection. Or that he was mistaken for someone else.
In a side plot, a young Muslim woman in the same unnamed city has begun a dangerous journey with one of her schoolmates, who is mixed up with radicals.
Meanwhile, the forlorn wife refuses to believe her husband 'was never on the plane,' and enlists a former lover (Peter Saarsgard), an aide to a senator (Alan Arkin), to get details about the husband's disappearance. She has a copy of a credit card payment to show that her husband was indeed on the plane.
Her formal lover is not eager to help her initially but soon he changes his mind and tries to push her case. This is one of the few areas where the film lacks conviction. The change of the heart looks too contrived.
Some of the chilling moments in the film come when the wife pushes the head of the intelligence unit (a coldly grand Meryl Streep) who, naturally, has no intention of discussing cases of rendition. Streep has just about 10 minutes in the two-hour long film but she creates quite an impact. She is very convincing when she confronts Saarsgard over the issue of torture
Despite her convictions, she too underestimates the new American attaché (Jake Gyllenhaal, adding yet another solid performance to his resume) who is watching the engineer being tortured by the cold and cynical chief of security. By now, we know that there is trouble brewing for the chief as the young woman who is hiding with her radicalised boyfriend is indeed the chief's eldest daughter.
The fall season's movies haven't been making a good impact. Rendition could then be a welcome entry. It may not set any box-office records but it is far above many Hollywood films currently vying for the attention of mature audiences.
Rediff Rating: 
