Rama’s SCREEN

Sometimes you come across a movie that you thought might do well because the preview looks convincing but it turns out to be very weak. RENDITION is one of the examples of a disappointing thriller. It has a controversial, provocative concept because it deals with… whether or not torture could be considered an acceptable method to fight terrorism .

After a recent terrorist attack in North Africa, an Egyptian chemical engineer gets arrested and sent to a secret prison outside United States where a CIA analyst has been assigned to observe the interrogation, which includes torture. Meanwhile, the American wife (Reese Witherspoon) of that Egyptian chemical engineer learns the reason for her husband’s disappearance.

It’s a brilliant idea for a story, this movie could’ve been groundbreaking and what hurts it is the unnecessary slow pace. The filmmaker chose to play it with that tempo to bring a certain daunting mood but it fails to succeed because the music score didn’t help and the directing was all over the place. It tried to be like ‘Memento‘ as far as sequences go but the result was more like a bad version of the movie ‘Traffic‘.
Meryl Streep brings back that bi&%hy, evil charm she had in ‘The Devil Wears Prada‘ and ‘The Manchurian Candidate‘ remake.

Torture is the excuse other countries use to chastise and look down on the U.S. But if you ask me, every country does it. How else would developing and under-developed countries, that don’t have CIA state of the art facilities and secret agents, gain intelligence and crush their rebels? The only way they know how is to kidnap some suspects and torture them into telling their plans. I think this method is inhumane and many innocent people have been wrongfully killed.
But only Jack Bauer of the TV’s 24 can make this whole torture method look like a necessary evil.. and get away with it.

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