Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is an Egyptian-American chemical engineer whose family immigrated to the United States when he was a boy; he has a green card for his work. He is married to Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), who is pregnant; they also have a young son. He flies into Washington, D.C., after a business trip to South Africa and is taken into custody and questioned by the CIA, who suspect that he might have connections to a known terrorist. When the stateside questioning doesn't yield any satisfactory answers, Corrinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) orders him put "on the plane." He is taken to Egypt under the "extraordinary rendition" program, started under President Clinton, that allows U.S. agencies to seize and transfer terrorist suspects to secret prisons around the world without their being charged or being given access to a lawyer. In Egypt, Anwar is questioned by Abasi Fawal (Igal Naor), a stern enemy of terrorism who believes that the suspect knows the people behind a recent bombing that killed a top CIA officer. The only evidence against him are a few phone calls listed on his cell phone records.

Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal), a young CIA analyst working in Egypt, is assigned to witness the interrogation of Anwar El-Ibrahimi. He is sickened by the torture techniques used on the prisoner, who steadfastly maintains his innocence. Meanwhile, back in Washington, Isabella tries find out what has happened to her husband. She contacts Alan Smith (Peter Sarsgaard), an old boyfriend from college who works for Senator Hawkins (Alan Arkin). She can't believe her husband could just disappear in America.

In a subplot, Abasi's daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach) falls under the spell of Khalid (Moa Khouas), a young man considering becoming a suicide bomber to avenge the torture death of his brother. At a meeting when a jihadist urges a group of young men to use their bodies as a weapon, we see how terrifying their commitment to violence really is.

Gavin Hood (Tsoti) directs this serious drama about human rights in an era when the war on terrorism is going full steam ahead and civil liberties are being sacrificed along the way. Through its characters, the film shows the similarity between the arrogance and power of Corrinne Whitman and the zeal of the Islamic leader of the terrorist group responsible for the bombing. Both are willing to use violence to achieve their ends, and both could care less about due process of the law, human rights, or the deaths of innocent civilians. Rendition shows us the dark side of the so-called war on terrorism and the widespread death and destruction that it brings in its wake.


Special features on the DVD include commentary by director Gavin Hood; "Outlawed" documentary; "Intersections: The Making of Rendition" documentary; five deleted scenes including an alternate ending.