Extraordinary Rendition

'Extraordinary Rendition' is a story about the kidnap and torture of foreign citizens by agents of the United States, in the context of suspected involvement of Islamic terrorism. But unlike Michael Winterbottom's 'The Road to Guantamano', which explored a similar theme, it eschews details for psychological insight into what it means to be tortured. There's an obvious message: say that people find God in adversity, or that the demonisation of Isalm is a self-fulfilling prophesy, but "we" are fighting this war in the wrong way on pragmatic grounds, even without consideration of the moral question. But the absence of specifics in this movie lets it down: there are echoes of the nightmare of '1984' about the vision it portrays, but while it serves as a warning, the story doesn't quite ring true - the suspect is made to endure a highly targetted and personal interrogation but we never learn why - and without definite context, the film risks making nothing more than the banal observation that torture is bad. The C.I.A. do kidnap and torture - but Winston Smith was justly guilty in the eyes of Big Brother, and you have to read the part of Orwell's book where Winston is free before you read the part about his imprisonment to truly understand. But this film makes no definite statements away from the torture chamber; making for a harrowing half-story, but a half-story nonetheless.

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

As 2007 British produced, minimalist drama Extraordinary Rendition rolls on, it eventually comes to find a sort of middle ground with both itself and its subject matter; the film an intermediate if overly and in a somewhat disappointing fashion, liberal effort depicting the sorts of negative energies and sensibilities that are born out of initial feelings of state-led hatred and paranoia. Here, the key is that state incurred hate and ill-minded attitudes placed unto its citizens it cannot trust can lead only onto further hatred; alienation and disillusionment, this time at the state on the citizen's behalf. In this regard, the film appears to reach a consensus which reads along the lines of that we should stop the titular extraordinary renditions, as they are unfair; inhumane and downright amoral. It's to the film's credit that reaching this point is the taut, dramatic and effective exercise it is, but the film as a technical exercise is about as much as it has going for it.

Co-director/writer Jim Threapleton takes a lower-key, more base-level look at the sort of subject matter that it takes on. The film is not the expansive, globe trotting, narrative heavy and big-budgeted 'issue' drama Gavin Hood's 2007 film Rendition was; a film systematically weaving in character with a multi-stranded approach which worked well, ultimately a film with a similar agenda to Jim Threapleton's film about the damning nature of extraordinary renditions, but doing so by refusing to blur lines between its lead's guilt and providing us with more to get involved with. For a good stretch, Extraordinary Rendition very much feels like an awareness assignment, like a vanity project - something that exists purely to open our eyes at events or items which are unfolding on grounds not too far from home; this, much rather than a film actually prepared to aggressively tackle any sort of issue or subject material before plumbing for a stone-wall stance on the issue. In fact, it would be true to say that the film makes its points fairly quickly despite doing so dramatically and rather harrowingly.

The film begins with the roar of an aeroplane in what is a noise within somewhat unrealistic proximity to that of the location we first observe; a badly beaten man, a British-Muslim, staggers through a kind of decrepit warehouse gone unused for years looking as if he's been to Hell and back. The man is Zaafir, indeed played by a British based Morrocan born talent named Omar Berdouni, whose previous roles have seen him somewhat synonymous with parts more broadly linked to that of the threat of terrorism in the Western world; specifically, United 93 or Body of Lies. The film goes on to flashback to sunnier and more welcoming hues, as a bog-standard street in a working class part of the United Kingdom is zoned in on. City establishing shots give way to shots of estates and then a specific street and then further still a house, that notion of approaching and then finding your man prominent; an aesthetic of surveillance or a greater power bearing in on a person prominently overlying proceedings.

Zaafir lives with his girlfriend, someone with whom a healthy relationship is already in bloom. The man is a university lecturer, a lecturer at the sort of place of study in which the students badger back with equally enlightening opinions and views on sociological subjects, thus threatening to match that of the teacher; the sense of this educational institute being one of a rather sought after ilk prominent. On his walk home, he is inexplicably snatched from this idyllic world by a car full of what are perceived as yobs, gangster-like white British males few would want to come into contact with. Reveals give way to these men actually being government employed, their threatening anonymity and general representation from the briefness in which we initially see them that of how Zaafir perceived them – as overly threatening, commonplace yobs doing what they do. Zaafir awakes in a ship container somewhere, and is badgered and berated by men in suits additionally working for the British government demanding solutions to questions Zaafir cannot answer.

The film's core is made up of a series of, albeit it admittedly well shot, bits and pieces revolving around how terrible his situation is and how horrible the men whom come and see him are. Where true substance and statements on the issue of extraditing a faceless victim, who is law abiding and with a great deal at stake family-wise, might rise to the surface, Threapleton instead provides us with a series of flashbacks embedding what we already know about his private life and constructing an image of the man as an innocent and authentic citizen. It's here the film appears to run out of things to say, that these things happen and its detrimental effect on those requisitioned, guilty of terrorism or not, is a terrible thing which ought not unfold in this manner, is a point put across fairly quickly. When certain scenes towards the end, featuring Andy Serkis, no less, and a thick Russian accent, effectively take on a version of prior events played at another gear, it is the moment the film holds up its hands and rolls over to the fact it has run out of ideas. The mere regurgitation of the specific content and documenting brutal methods of interrogation, such as water-boarding, which plays out informs us of this. The film is a technical exercise, and that is all – a film pointing something out without grappling with it but doing so in a manner which is worth recommending without getting as excited about as one did with Hood's film. Regardless, it is a film advertising certain talents both on and behind the camera; talents I would not mind seeing more of in the future.

I read the case for this film and thought this sounds good. I check out reviews on here and thought could be very good but I was bitterly disappointed. This film struggles to keep you watching it. It is almost like they didn't know where to focus their attention. The acting wasn't amazing, its also a really short film (almost as if they were struggling for enough film time) it was just a really bad film. Makes a lot more sense on why I was able to buy it from pound land now. I DO NOT recommend this film unless you are looking for something to write a bad review about on here, in which case its perfect.

Low budget, little talent and just not well made.

That's 77 minutes of my life I would like back please

What you do if you have no story to tell is shoot some footage based around a current topic and hope that everybody will fill in the blanks. This tactic would probably be attributed to the character being kept in the dark, how convenient to base a plot on ignorance. Its irritating to watch. I thought the actor was OK until he played 'content and normal' then he was just amateurish and tedious. This might appeal to those people that have never once had a thought or feeling of their own, but movies should not be made for these people so there is no excuse.If you wish to remain on the topic of Islamic fundamentalists watch necessary killing, its like a realistic 'Rambo: first blood' with a terrorist as Rambo; much better, or the brilliant film by Chris morris, four lions.