Extraordinary Rendition (2007)

Very very predictable, including the post credit scene !!!

Sick Product of a Sick System

A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.

This film is so real. It treats its characters with so much care and sensitivity.

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.

A man is pulled off a London Street and taken to some foreign country where he is tortured as a terror suspect. Dull, banal film bored the hell out of me. More an idea then a film. I was half way into this 77 minute film when I realized I had no idea who anyone on screen was. It was as if they took every other similar film and pulled out all of the ideas and put them in one place with out the real notion of character. Certainly its well acted with passion but there is no emotional center, there is just an everyman of sorts which the filmmakers feel is enough. Its not. And while the story presented id in theory important as a warning the film is too dull to convince anyone of it, especially if one has seen the other, better films of a similar ilk (rendition with Reese Witherspoon for example)

Rather shocking drama, even after seeing documentaries about torture at Guantanamo, the concept of extraordinary rendition and the Hollywood version "Rendition" released in the same year. I don't really get why the Hollywood version was made at all, and so shortly after this film was released. This film succeeds very well in not only depicting the horrors that Zaafir goes through (the torture scenes are very difficult to watch sometimes) but also the aftermath of his ordeal. When the main character from "Rendition" comes home he happily cuddles his wife and newborn baby and that's it for a happy ending. Not very realistic in my opinion. This film shows how a man that endured such horrors as Zaafir did can't just pick up his old life again but is left scarred, probably for the rest of his life. It also shows that the way Muslims are treated by Western society can, in some cases, drive them into the arms of radical Islam. It's not explicitly stated in this film that this was the case for Zaafir, but he was at least much more into religion then he was before he was abducted and tortured. As for the acting; the actor playing Zaafir was very intense and Andy Serkis also did a fine job as the menacing interrogator. I'd say: forget the Hollywood version with the Big Names and Big Budget, watch this instead.

I suppose one of the things about living in a developed country is having things nicely packaged.If I eat meat, I don't want to be presented with vivid descriptions of slaughterhouses. News programmes can show pictures of fighting in Iraq, but detailed close-ups of severed limbs are inappropriate. But if I think food has caused unnecessary suffering or illegal cruelty I might want to know. If our boys abroad fighting for king and country have raped or pillaged, I expect them to be brought to justice. No gory details, you understand. Just do something about it.Words package things. In some cases, we can always work it out if we want a bigger picture. Foie gras. Eliminate an enemy target. Regime change. Go to the bathroom. Spare me the details.So what about phrases like extraordinary rendition? waterboarding? Well I can explain these, I think. Extraordinary rendition is when a terrorist suspect is transported to a foreign country. Waterboarding - there's been some human rights arguments over whether that's torture or not. You pour water on someone. They worry they're drowning. Doesn't sound very nice, but not like pouring acid on them or the really nasty stuff.The truth is, we don't have the vocabulary for things we've never imagined. Not just the words. The emotional vocabulary is lacking.Extraordinary Rendition follows Zaafir, a London-based academic. Suddenly he is snatched from the streets, locked in a shipping container, drugged and abused. He wakes up in a foreign country where he is tortured. Various details of his life come forward where erroneous assumptions could be made. As director Jim Threapleton says, "It's about the footprints we all leave in our lives. Whether it's your credit card statements, or destinations you travelled to in your year off, or an email you may or may not have opened. Under scrutiny, that can be misinterpreted or appropriated to an agenda." Eventually, Zaafir is released without charge.The film uses flashbacks and flash-forwards to tell the three segments of his life. His normal life as a teacher with friends and family. His traumatised self when he returns (and his uncompreheding wife). Horrific experiences abroad.That horrific segment is simply quite graphic. Waterboarding ceases to be a concept, hiding behind nicely packaged words. It's scary sh*t. Not that they stop at that. They do the more traditionally 'really nasty stuff' too.Extraordinary Rendition comes from a minute budget and no little integrity. It is careful not to point accusatory fingers (the truth is always more complicated), but equally careful in its researching of hundreds of cases. It was made with the assistance of Amnesty International. At the Edinburgh UK Premiere, producer Andy Noble was careful not to overstate facts (but he was equally knowledgeable and demonstrated a firm grasp of the data on the many real cases from which the story was inspired).The main drawback of Extraordinary Rendition is its narrative structure. As soon as we know the three different sections of Zaafir's life, not a lot is added by way of plot development. I also felt the story should stand on its own without the addition of background drumming and wailing for added effect (although the diegetic sounds of a person being tortured in an adjacent room were very effective.) As a work of fiction focussing on human rights, as a protest film, it is first rate. But as cinema entertainment it may well be swamped by similar themed films using larger budgets. Like the Hollywood version (called simply 'Rendition') due for mainstream distribution only months after the release of this film.