Eye Candy #307 - "Rendition"

Rendition:  A one-sided, heavy-handed indictment of the use of rendition and torture in the "War on Terror" to obtain information used to interdict other terror acts and terrorists, "Rendition" does come across as the latest entry in the "America...BAD!" school of film (look at this year's documentary Oscar nominees as other examples of this genre, as if the only documentaries worth seeing this year all somehow managed to slag the US, the Iraq War, or both). It's not even going for parity, it's wearing that right on its sleeve. As a film, "Rendition" is fine. It's not the best, not the worst of its kind. It kept my attention, and it's watchable. The performances break down into two categories - 1.) the good guys (Jake Gyllenhaal, Reese Witherspoon, the rendered husband, the young martyr); 2.) the bad guys (Alan Arkin, Meryl Streep, the interrogator). It's portrayed as that black/white - authority figures are capital B Bad, while the mavericks, rebels, those against the system are capital G Good, and that is hardly capital R Realistic. But in those terms, some folks are going to eat this film up with a spoon because its simplifying a complicated problem in a manner that will get them riled. Fine. Everybody absorbs every film and every message through their own filter. Just don't forget - it is a feature film, from a fictional script, designed to agitate people enough to buy a movie ticket or rent it to watch it and see what it's "all about". If you want to know more, please, please, please inform yourself through some venue or medium other than Hollywood. The best part of the movie? Peter Sarsgaard, not playing a heavy, layabout, criminal, murderer, or scumbag, but rather as the most realistic person in the film, as opposed to say Meryl Streep, who, if she had a mustache, would be twisting the ends like Snidely Whiplash, she's played as so much of an out-and-out heavy.