Genres

Visitors Review

TrevorAclea 2012-05-22 14:58:13

The road to Hell...

Opening with a richly ironic quote from Dick Cheney that men withoutconscience are capable of any degradation the human mind can imagine,Extraordinary Rendition clearly wants to be a throwback to thepolitical cinema of the 60s, when films by directors like Costa-Gavrascould deal with recent events and have a real impact, but while it hasthe urgency and the passion it lacks the ability to do its subjectjustice. It's a classic case of a new director trying to make a markwith an important subject they don't yet have the skills to pull off.You can't fault the motives or the desire to bring to attentionBritain's scandalous policy of colluding in the abduction of its owncitizens and sending them to states where torture is practised forinterrogation, and it's hard not to agree with the film's position thatsuch practices often only act to radicalise minorities and increasepotential threats. It's the execution that is the problem.The story is simple enough – a Muslim teacher (Omar Berdouni, one ofthe terrorists in United 93) is abducted, drugged and shipped to anArab country where he's interrogated and tortured to confess to crimeshe's never informed of – but the film often tries to overcomplicate itin the editing suite. The fractured narrative and timeline, mixingbefore and after the abduction with the interrogations, doesn't work atall, robbing the film of any immediacy and constantly taking us awayfrom the central drama. Because we know he survives, there's notension, and since the film goes out of its way not to shock itspotential audience away, there's little of the relentless horror anduncertainty that a film about human rights violations should convey.Indeed, it's that polite sensibility that really dooms the film; apolite treatment of an ugly subject isn't really appropriate. Whileit's admirable that it avoids torture porn, there's little to make youfeel uncomfortable until the last 15 minutes or so when the filmfinally starts to build up some power.While there's a lot to be said for focussing on one person'sexperience, by doing so it misses out on the wider political issues –such as the question of Britain willingly giving up its sovereigntyalong with its citizens in the interests of a foreign power that won'treciprocate – while failing to create an involving human drama tocompensate. You simply don't care much for any of the thinly sketchedcharacters. While it doesn't trivialize the issue, it doesn't humaniseit either. There's little in the domestic scenes to convince that theseare people rather than actors, let alone characters you can really feeland empathise with. At times it feels more like a TV crimereconstruction, with all the attendant weaknesses.Technically, the low budget often makes itself felt. Director JimThreapleton has some interesting visual ideas, but parts of it feelphotocopied from other films. The quality of the hand-held 2.35:1widescreen video photography changes from frame to frame in the earlyscenes and the sporadic moments of shakeycam or MTV cutting feel a bitlaboured, giving it the sense of nice, middle-class boys trying to keepit street to keep the kids watching. The plot mechanics are a bit ropeytoo, with that clumsy first-or-second-take feel to some scenes andperformances. On the plus side, it does a good job of showing how thehero relies more on what is hinted as a more fundamentalist form ofIslam during his captivity, while Andy Serkis is superb as theinterrogator ("I just have a job to do"), and it's in his scenes thatthe film really finds its feet. It's just a shame the film doesn'ttrust their quiet power and constantly cuts away from them. B+ forintentions but a C- for achievement.

paul2001sw-1 2012-05-22 00:33:32

Harrowing but incomplete

'Extraordinary Rendition' is a story about the kidnap and torture offoreign citizens by agents of the United States, in the context ofsuspected involvement of Islamic terrorism. But unlike MichaelWinterbottom's 'The Road to Guantamano', which explored a similartheme, it eschews details for psychological insight into what it meansto be tortured. There's an obvious message: say that people find God inadversity, or that the demonisation of Isalm is a self-fulfillingprophesy, but "we" are fighting this war in the wrong way on pragmaticgrounds, even without consideration of the moral question. But theabsence of specifics in this movie lets it down: there are echoes ofthe nightmare of '1984' about the vision it portrays, but while itserves as a warning, the story doesn't quite ring true - the suspect ismade to endure a highly targetted and personal interrogation but wenever learn why - and without definite context, the film risks makingnothing more than the banal observation that torture is bad. The C.I.A.do kidnap and torture - but Winston Smith was justly guilty in the eyesof Big Brother, and you have to read the part of Orwell's book whereWinston is free before you read the part about his imprisonment totruly understand. But this film makes no definite statements away fromthe torture chamber; making for a harrowing half-story, but ahalf-story nonetheless.

Jack Keane 2012-05-18 00:47:29

Extraordinarily powerful (albiet extraordinarily flawed)...

Where to begin, as we discuss "Extraordinary Rendition"? Perhaps itmight be best to start with the film's positive aspects, and then moveonto its negatives. So, here are its PRO's: The performances of thethree main leads are quite brilliant. Omar Berdouni - an excellentactor who (with the exception of...say...the big part he played in thefirst episode of Channel 4's Bernard-Hill-narrated "Ancient Egyptians"several years ago) has of late played numerous characters in9/11-tinged films (such as "The Kingdom" and two Paul Greengrass films,"United 93" and "Green Zone") and TV shows (notably the BBC drama"Occupation") - plays another character set in a post-9/11 world, onlythis time is the main focus of the film, instead of a supportingplayer. From start to finish, Berdouni imbues his thinly writtencharacter with enough believability and sympathy for the viewer to carefor him as he is plucked from the streets of London, and thrownheadfirst into a terrifying and inexplicable situation of endless fearand torture. Berdouni never overdoes it; he keeps his character'semotions cool and calm at the start, and when he is subjected to hishorrific ordeal, his anger, frustration and fear can all be seenbubbling under the surface, until cracks start to appear - and whenthose cracks do break, the result is truly poignant. Ania Sowinski doesvery well with what little she has to work with, as Berdouni'scharacter's wife. To begin with, her character isn't objectionable atall, and is well above being just a serviceable wife character for themain male protagonist to bounce off of at the film's start.Unfortunately, by the film's end, her character becomes terriblypredictable and unreasonably whiny, for reasons that the film nevertakes the time to explain (if it even has a reason with which to helpexplain her ultimate behaviour). But the real star of the film, onceagain becoming a major scene-stealer (even for such a dark role), isAndy Serkis. He plays a haggard, fatigued and despicable interrogator,whose job it is to extract the information he believes Berdouni'scharacter has, but clearly doesn't have. Serkis doesn't play thisperson as a straight-up evil bad guy - by his own word (which may ormay not be true), he's a man with a family, trying to earn his keepthrough this job that he hates. True to his character's form, he almostmakes you think that this might be true, and almost makes Berdouni'scharacter think that he did something to deserve the punishment he goesthrough. As for the torture scenes, they are as about as horrifying asyou might expect. Eventually, the process of having seen so much ofthis horror played out before your eyes (the most unsettling torturescene being the one involving "dry drowning") leaves the viewerexhausted - probably something the film-makers fully intended. But nowfor the CON's: As hinted above, the script isn't particularly wellfleshed out and written. The characters are mere sketches of properhuman beings, leaving the actors to have to try and do the fleshing outthemselves. The story is provocative and disturbing, but it lacks theproper hefty dramatic weight needed to make it stick in the mind. Aswell as that, the structure of the story aims for a ChristopherNolan-esque non-chronological story jumble, which in this film's casemakes the proceedings occasionally confusing. There's no real need orreason for this shuffling of story chapters to take place, other thanfor some stylistic verve. Unfortunately, the film doesn't really havethe metaphorical meat on its bones, nor the running time, nor thebudget, for this to work properly. The editing, meanwhile, is almostunwatchably choppy. If you've seen the "Transformers" films and thinktheir editing is too slipshod, then prepare to re-evaluate thatopinion. And overall, the film feels just far too rushed. Its runningtime is only 77 minutes! Even an episode of "Sherlock" is longer thanthis. All through the film, I kept catching myself thinking that a lotof the scenes needed to be slightly longer, to allow the atmosphere ofeach scene to breath and be fully appreciated. It's hard to explainwith words, but if you ever see the film, you'll know what I mean. Inthe end, it's a film with admirably dark and provocative themes, pulledoff with a tiny budget, great acting, and which does what it sets outto do - shock, disturb and make you think. But technically, it could'vebeen done so much better, with a better eye for characters, atmosphere,tension, and drama...

2012-05-17 12:49:19

Poor Delivery of a Good Message

This review is from: Extraordinary Rendition (DVD) This film delivers a relevant, timely, poignant and all-too-necessary message, but does so through an at-best mediocre delivery.To be fair, the failure of this DVD lies not with any acting ability as the actors' performances were superb. Rather, the director and his technical team -- even for an obvious low-budget film -- failed miserably in producing a coherent, well-connected storyline lacking in substandard scene development and photography.Though the torture scenes are vivid and realistic, the plot loses coherence at many points throughout the firm and and filming seems strained to continue the film in a logical and relevant progression of events. Obviously the sound crew and / or the director were not cognizant of the fact that in several instances lines were not delivered in either a coherent or understandable fashion. There were more than several instances when spoken audio was totally unintelligible and one would have needed to resort to subtitles to know what was being said. Of course, this DVD also has no subtitles or captions for the hearing impaired. A higher quality production touching on the same theme would be the film "Rendition".

2012-05-07 14:11:40

hopeless uninteresting

What you do if you have no story to tell is shoot some footage basedaround a current topic and hope that everybody will fill in the blanks.This tactic would probably be attributed to the character being kept inthe dark, how convenient to base a plot on ignorance. Its irritating towatch. I thought the actor was OK until he played 'content and normal'then he was just amateurish and tedious. This might appeal to thosepeople that have never once had a thought or feeling of their own, butmovies should not be made for these people so there is no excuse.If youwish to remain on the topic of Islamic fundamentalists watch necessarykilling, its like a realistic 'Rambo: first blood' with a terrorist asRambo; much better, or the brilliant film by Chris morris, four lions.

david-weston60 2012-05-07 09:52:58

high hopes

I read the case for this film and thought this sounds good. I check outreviews on here and thought could be very good but I was bitterlydisappointed. This film struggles to keep you watching it. It is almostlike they didn't know where to focus their attention. The acting wasn'tamazing, its also a really short film (almost as if they werestruggling for enough film time) it was just a really bad film. Makes alot more sense on why I was able to buy it from pound land now. I DONOT recommend this film unless you are looking for something to write abad review about on here, in which case its perfect.Low budget, little talent and just not well made.That's 77 minutes of my life I would like back please

johnnyboyz 2012-05-05 04:56:23

Not as extraordinary as Rendition, which itself was rather an extraordinary rendition of some perilously similar subject material to that of Extraordinary Rendition.

As 2007 British produced, minimalist drama Extraordinary Renditionrolls on, it eventually comes to find a sort of middle ground with bothitself and its subject matter; the film an intermediate if overly andin a somewhat disappointing fashion, liberal effort depicting the sortsof negative energies and sensibilities that are born out of initialfeelings of state-led hatred and paranoia. Here, the key is that stateincurred hate and ill-minded attitudes placed unto its citizens itcannot trust can lead only onto further hatred; alienation anddisillusionment, this time at the state on the citizen's behalf. Inthis regard, the film appears to reach a consensus which reads alongthe lines of that we should stop the titular extraordinary renditions,as they are unfair; inhumane and downright amoral. It's to the film'scredit that reaching this point is the taut, dramatic and effectiveexercise it is, but the film as a technical exercise is about as muchas it has going for it.Co-director/writer Jim Threapleton takes a lower-key, more base-levellook at the sort of subject matter that it takes on. The film is notthe expansive, globe trotting, narrative heavy and big-budgeted 'issue'drama Gavin Hood's 2007 film Rendition was; a film systematicallyweaving in character with a multi-stranded approach which worked well,ultimately a film with a similar agenda to Jim Threapleton's film aboutthe damning nature of extraordinary renditions, but doing so byrefusing to blur lines between its lead's guilt and providing us withmore to get involved with. For a good stretch, Extraordinary Renditionvery much feels like an awareness assignment, like a vanity project -something that exists purely to open our eyes at events or items whichare unfolding on grounds not too far from home; this, much rather thana film actually prepared to aggressively tackle any sort of issue orsubject 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 fairlyquickly despite doing so dramatically and rather harrowingly.The film begins with the roar of an aeroplane in what is a noise withinsomewhat unrealistic proximity to that of the location we firstobserve; a badly beaten man, a British-Muslim, staggers through a kindof decrepit warehouse gone unused for years looking as if he's been toHell and back. The man is Zaafir, indeed played by a British basedMorrocan born talent named Omar Berdouni, whose previous roles haveseen him somewhat synonymous with parts more broadly linked to that ofthe threat of terrorism in the Western world; specifically, United 93or Body of Lies. The film goes on to flashback to sunnier and morewelcoming hues, as a bog-standard street in a working class part of theUnited Kingdom is zoned in on. City establishing shots give way toshots of estates and then a specific street and then further still ahouse, that notion of approaching and then finding your man prominent;an aesthetic of surveillance or a greater power bearing in on a personprominently overlying proceedings.Zaafir lives with his girlfriend, someone with whom a healthyrelationship is already in bloom. The man is a university lecturer, alecturer at the sort of place of study in which the students badgerback with equally enlightening opinions and views on sociologicalsubjects, thus threatening to match that of the teacher; the sense ofthis educational institute being one of a rather sought after ilkprominent. On his walk home, he is inexplicably snatched from thisidyllic world by a car full of what are perceived as yobs,gangster-like white British males few would want to come into contactwith. Reveals give way to these men actually being government employed,their threatening anonymity and general representation from thebriefness in which we initially see them that of how Zaafir perceivedthem – as overly threatening, commonplace yobs doing what they do.Zaafir awakes in a ship container somewhere, and is badgered andberated by men in suits additionally working for the British governmentdemanding solutions to questions Zaafir cannot answer.The film's core is made up of a series of, albeit it admittedly wellshot, bits and pieces revolving around how terrible his situation isand how horrible the men whom come and see him are. Where truesubstance and statements on the issue of extraditing a faceless victim,who is law abiding and with a great deal at stake family-wise, mightrise to the surface, Threapleton instead provides us with a series offlashbacks embedding what we already know about his private life andconstructing 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 thesethings happen and its detrimental effect on those requisitioned, guiltyof terrorism or not, is a terrible thing which ought not unfold in thismanner, is a point put across fairly quickly. When certain scenestowards the end, featuring Andy Serkis, no less, and a thick Russianaccent, effectively take on a version of prior events played at anothergear, it is the moment the film holds up its hands and rolls over tothe fact it has run out of ideas. The mere regurgitation of thespecific content and documenting brutal methods of interrogation, suchas water-boarding, which plays out informs us of this. The film is atechnical exercise, and that is all – a film pointing something outwithout grappling with it but doing so in a manner which is worthrecommending without getting as excited about as one did with Hood'sfilm. Regardless, it is a film advertising certain talents both on andbehind the camera; talents I would not mind seeing more of in thefuture.

pmose 2012-05-04 18:56:21

Intense low-budget drama

Rather shocking drama, even after seeing documentaries about torture atGuantanamo, the concept of extraordinary rendition and the Hollywoodversion "Rendition" released in the same year. I don't really get whythe Hollywood version was made at all, and so shortly after this filmwas released. This film succeeds very well in not only depicting thehorrors that Zaafir goes through (the torture scenes are very difficultto watch sometimes) but also the aftermath of his ordeal. When the maincharacter from "Rendition" comes home he happily cuddles his wife andnewborn baby and that's it for a happy ending. Not very realistic in myopinion. This film shows how a man that endured such horrors as Zaafirdid can't just pick up his old life again but is left scarred, probablyfor the rest of his life. It also shows that the way Muslims aretreated by Western society can, in some cases, drive them into the armsof radical Islam. It's not explicitly stated in this film that this wasthe case for Zaafir, but he was at least much more into religion thenhe was before he was abducted and tortured. As for the acting; theactor playing Zaafir was very intense and Andy Serkis also did a finejob as the menacing interrogator. I'd say: forget the Hollywood version with the Big Names and BigBudget, watch this instead.

ed_two_o_nine 2012-04-29 14:27:56

Challenging Stuff

This is a very good film that deals with an extremely challenging issuein a though provoking and humane way. This movie from first timedirector Jim Threapleton (I knew I recognised the name, him being theex partner of Kate Winslett) is not easy viewing as it is not meant tobe. The film is the story of Zaafir (an excellent Omar Berdouni) auniversity lecturer who deals with contentious issues such as democracycoming out of periods of violence and is also involved in programmesthat promote learning in the Islamic world. Zaafir is suddenly taken ofthe streets by unnamed US and British agents and then transferred to anunnamed county to be questioned / tortured all in the name of justice.The torturer in chief is never named as they would not be but is playedexcellently by Andy Serkiss with the right amount of evil and malicemixed with the compassion he needs to draw information. The torturesequences are rightly hard to watch and you begin to see howconfessions gained in such conditions truly are worthless. The film iswell directed and the editing serves the story well switching frombefore the kidnapping tgo after the kidnapping to show how the eventsnot only affect Zaafir bit all those close to him especially hispartner. Indeed some of the scenes between them the dialogue isintentionally very low in the mix as the raw emotions of the tortureplay out. Highly recommended.

2012-04-29 11:29:08

Extraordinary Rendition

'Extraordinary Rendition' is a pretty dark and bleak look at extraordinary rendition flights since 911. It had the feel of a crimewatch reconstruction at times and the acting was a little wooden, but the themes explored were quite shocking and Andy Serkis managed to be truly menacing in his role of interrogator. The film didn't have a conclusive ending and left me with many unanswered questions. It is relatively short at 77 minutes and it could easily have stretched to 90 and tied up these loose ends. It is a worthy film for the topic it explores alone, it's just a shame it wasn't carried out a little better. A solid 3 stars.Feel free to check out my blog which can be found on my profile page.