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I just saw Rendition in theater Friday night. Good but unspectacular movie. As a whole it is neither exceptional nor bad. Just a little blah… In short, Rendition = BABEL. Same structure, same shortcomings, same result. It doesn’t help that it’s the 47th movie in the past 2 years whose subject relates to the Iraq War.The major issue I had was the terribly underwritten story and Gavin Hood’s attempt to get into way, way too many subplots instead of following Isabelle’s character attempt to rescue her husband from the evil CIA. This would have followed the most compelling part of the plot and given all characters time to develop. Acting-wise, why get an All-star cast if you are going to have all characters be one-dimensional and give them minimal screen time. Reese Witherspoon appears in only about 1/4th of the scene and does a good job of playing a tough women in a role that could easily have fallen into a self-pitying, weeping, fest but stays on the sideline for too long. Jake Gyllenhaal, who spends most of his screen time sitting in a corner and mastering the art of getting high, does a good job as Douglas Freeman. In the other hand, Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin are just going through the motion. The highlight comes from the Tunisian actors turning out some outstanding performance that should be commended.
Major plot holes in the movie, overly simplistic in character development and pivotal events, too complex in terms of subplot and secondary characters. Many of the important events in the movie happen off-screen and sandwiched in there are some torture scenes.
Don’t get me wrong, Rendition is somewhat entertaining, well-crafted, well-acted, and good-looking but given the All-star cast, I would go as far as to say the movie was a disappointment. Rendition’s attempt to move the audience and make people think comes up short.
C+
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