Anybody else see this piece of shit movie Rendition (2007, dir. Gavin Hood)? I mean, it’s not like I had astronomical expectations for it as a film, but I was at least hoping for something in the vein of The Road to 9/11 or United 93. But alas. I guess that it is in keeping with the arc of extraordinary rendition that not one single character in the film has, uh, a character. Corinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) is the cold CIA chief who phones in the authority to render Anwar al-Abrihimi (Omar Metwally), so he is rendered and tortured by Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor), a brooding thug of unidentified nationality (in fact, this half of Rendition, replete with suicide bombings and secret prisons, takes place in simply “North Africa”.), which torture is observed by CIA agent Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal). Freeman watches the torture and then goes home and gets drunk, and is so upset by what he sees that he does something to immediately stop it can’t even fuck his brooding CIA colleague of unidentified (but Arab) nationality. Sometimes Freeman gets drunk at a sort of lounge with belly dancers (?). Meanwhile Isabella Fields Al-Abrihimi, Anwar’s totally white wife (Reese Witherspoon), hangs out in a senator’s office with her totally white pregnant stomach and cries out for justice.

I’ve already given too much space to this “film.” If you want a heartwarming look at how conservative and moderate America narratize the condition of “terrorism” and the American “response”, watch The Road to 9/11. If you want a film that portrays torture as a human act with emotional and physical consequences that go beyond Jake Gyllenhaal getting drunk, try Death and the Maiden. If you want to just have a good time, by all means check out Trapped In The Closet.