Rendition is a skillfully-crafted and provocative thriller that puts human faces on the unjust way in which our system of laws can be used and exploited. A chemical engineer (Metwally) on his way back from South Africa is taken away by cops in an airport in DC and sent to a secret prison facility where he is to be tortured by non-US officials for information on a recent suicide bombing as a CIA analyst (Gyllenhaal) watches. His wife (Witherspoon) tries her hardest to find out what's happened to her husband, even going so far as to call up an old boyfriend (Sarsgaard) who works for a senator (Arkin). It turns out that the senator has connections with the woman (Streep) who authorized his rendition. When all laid out in just a few sentences, the plot does sound a bit coincidental and unrealistic. However, when you watch the movie, you see a film that is sympathetically acted, intricately poignant, and effortlessly believable.The movie had a strong technical base off of which to build its narrative. The shots were beautiful, the editing well-paced, and the music heart-pounding. As a result of all three factors, the build up to the climax was palpably tense. And while the acting was spot-on, the writing and dialogue could have used a little work. Half the time they went out of their way to make what was going on explicit, while the other half of the time they assumed the audience knew what had happened or the characters correctly predicted everything that was going on, despite it all being classified top secret. These small errors aside, this gripping thriller based on the government's anti-terrorism policies is well worth watching.
IMDb link: http://www.imdb.com/title/tt0804522/