Hollywood's Fall Offensive, Part II: "Rendition"

Tom Miller

In "Rendition," director Gavin Hood's melodrama about the CIA, the War on Terror, and the use of torture to obtain information, we "learn" several (Hollywood) truths.  More on that later.
 
Following a suicide bombing that kills a CIA agent in North Africa, Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally), a successful Egyptian immigrant living and working in Chicago and married to pert soccer mom Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), is pulled off a plane in Washington, D.C. and flown to Africa to be tortured.

The practice of handing suspected terrorists off to foreign governments for interrogation is called "extraordinary rendition," and it allows for the kind of vigorous questioning than U.S. courts frown on. 

El-Ibrahimi is targeted because a known terrorist has placed several calls to his cell phone.  He claims he never received the calls and doesn't know the terrorist.  He even passes a polygraph test.

When warned that the evidence against El-Ibrahimi is weak, intelligence honcho Corrinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) doesn't hesitate.  She has no time for reflection.  Or, second thoughts.  All arrogance and steely resolve, she orders it done post-haste.

Back in Africa, the CIA assigns an inexperienced pencil-pusher, not an agent, to observe the interrogation and report back to headquarters.  The analyst, Douglas Freeman (Gyllenhaal), is repelled by the torture and tries to convince Whitman that it's not working. 

In fact, can't work if "Rendition" is to be believed.  At one point, Freeman asks a local official how many of these interrogations have yielded results.  "One, two, ten, a hundred?" he wonders.  The official casts his eyes down and says nothing.  He's evidently too embarrassed to admit that the answer is "none." 

In a subplot we also "learn" that torture not only doesn't work but that it begets new terrorists.  Exponentially.  1000 to 1 in fact.  Who knew?

Meanwhile, back at home, a very-pregnant Isabella leaves behind her young son and rushes to D.C. to get answers.  She doesn't get far though with a Senator who cares more about his career than a missing husband and father who might have been wrongly detained.  And, the stress of it all induces labor. 

Okay, time for the quiz.  What have we "learned?" 

1) Torture never works.  Never.  Yeah, and global warming is entirely man-made . . .  All values are equal . . . Cuban health care is superior to American.  You can "learn" lots of things at the movies.

I'm not going to endorse torture.  It's brutal and dehumanizing, but that doesn't mean that it never works.  Just read Pulitzer Prize-winning journalist Ted Morgan's My Battle of Algiers: A Memoir.  Morgan was a young French officer during the Battle of Algiers and recalls that "Torture produced immediate results" that allowed the French to roll up the terrorist cells operating in the city. 

2)  The CIA is arrogant, out of control, and gleefully and recklessly tramples on people's rights. 

Apparently-innocent people are whisked away to be tortured on flimsy evidence.  And, there are no checks and balances to prevent abuse.  Powerful officials are close-minded and malevolent.  Wall Street Journal columnist Peggy Noonan says that such leftist fantasies are common among our privileged leadership class whose members all too often grew up in "a golden ghetto" and have little knowledge of the real world.  They know what they've seen in the movies, read in the N.Y. Times, and heard in Ivy League classrooms.  Of course they think the CIA is evil.

3) The CIA is also stupid.  The Agency clearly thinks that the El-Ibrahimi case is important, but they assign it to a young and untried analyst.  We are supposed to believe that there is no one else available.  If it's important enough to have the attention of the Agency's top officials, don't you think they'd get somebody on a plane?  Besides El-Ibrahimi, of course. 

4)  Torture is not only counter-productive but wildly so.  Torture one suspected terrorist and you produce 1000 new terrorists.  Why not 10,000?  The truth is that no one knows the answer to this.  In fact, can't know.  So, why not just make one up?  And, make it as alarming as possible since that suits the filmmaker's agenda. 

Gyllenhaal, who plays a conscience-stricken CIA agent here, a gay cowboy in "Brokeback Mountain," and a sermonizing Marine in "Jarhead" claims to hate "preachy" movies.  So do Al Gore and Michael Moore. 

The critics don't mind though.  Roger Ebert (One thumb up!) calls "Rendition" "intelligent" and "wise." That's because he "learned" the movie's #1 lesson: "If there is one thing history and common sense teach us, it is that if you torture someone well enough, they will tell you what they think you want to hear," Roger sums up.  History and common sense?  Try the movies, Roger. 

N.Y. Times reviewer A.O. Scott even tries to preempt potential critics of the movie: "it is inevitable," he writes, "that someone with a loud voice and a small mind will label "Rendition" anti-American.

That would be moi, A.O.  I guess I haven't learned anything after all.

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Copyright 2012 by Tom Miller