Trailer Analysis: Rendition

Posted on August 19, 2007 by E
Filed Under Trailer Watch |

So this is what you could do if your film wins an Academy Award…good to know.

I hadn’t heard of Rendition until the trailer turned up on Apple’s website. If it had popped up on the various movie gossip sites I frequent I’d probably not have paid any attention because there are certain people whose names cause me to block out the work they do. Reese Witherspoon is definitely one of those people. So going in, I had no clue about the plot or premise of this movie that also stars Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Peter Sarsgaard and J.K. Simmons.

It appears that the movie is about American prisons overseas where presumed terrorists are held and interrogated to extract information that could prevent attacks (which is apparently what ‘rendition’ means in this context).

Reese Witherspoon plays the wife of a man (Omar Metwally) of Middle Eastern origin who is kidnapped at the airport on his way home and transported to one such prison to be interrogated under the supervision of an agent on his first case (Gyllenhaal). Simmons, Streep and Arkin play various government suits making the right noises of keeping people alive, airtight cases and all the other blah blah normally associated with people in power leaving everybody else in the dark. Sarsgaard is the government employee who finds out about the practice in America, and from the trailer at least, it appears that he’s on the lone wife’s case. So that leaves me to assume that Gyllenhaal’s character will be conflicted about the work they do, seeing as it is his first case and all.

The trailer looks interesting enough to increase curiosity about a film that looks like another addition to the multi-strand conspiracy/political intrigue tales of the recent past. This is possibly also another vehicle for Witherspoon to explore her dramatic range while Arkin, Simmons and Sarsgaard play it like they always do and Streep dusts off (and reuses) her Machurian Candidate expressions and mannerisms.

To explain my opening comment, this film is directed by Gavin Hood, the director of Best Foreign Film Oscar-winner Tsotsi and the man is next scheduled to work on the big screen debut of Wolverine as a solo act. Colour me envious.

Will you be seeking this one out when it comes to theatres near you or will you wait for the inevitable DVD?
Watch the trailer for Rendition and come back to let us know what you thought.

   

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