Poor Peter Saarsgard. In a film where even Meryl Streep can't manage to give any depth to her vaudevillian mustache-twirler of a villain, he stands out as the only talented actor with Rendition who gave it an honest go. Sure, his was the only character with a vaguely original inner conflict, but in a movie directed by Gavin Hood (Tsotsi), starring the fabulous Streep, J.K. Simmons and the sometimes-OK Jake Gyllenhaal, it's reasonable to expect more than a low-rent Syriana.
Sadly, that's all Rendition is. Mediocre. Boilerplate. Humdrum. After stories of mass walkouts at its Toronto première, audiences with an over-developed sense of irony mighthave been hoping for hilarious badness. Even there, Rendition disappoints.
The story is sparked when Anwar El-Ibrihimi (Omar Metwally) is unexpectedly arrested by the CIA and extradited to a prison outside of American jurisprudence. His wife Isabella (Reece Witherspoon) employs the help of senator’s aide Alan Smith (Saarsgard) in figuring out what happened to him. They find out, and Witherspoon overacts Isabella's freak-out at evil CIA director Corrine Whitman (Streep). Elsewhere, the CIA agent in charge of overseeing Anwar's interrogation (Gyllenhaal) has a banal moral conflict and starts drinking heavily. Also, there's a pair of Muslim star-crossed lovers mixed up in there somewhere, who are also pulled into the cycle of hatred and eventually destroyed by it, restarting the cycle. Or something.
The thing that Rendition gets so damnably wrong is mistaking convolution for complexity. Though writer Kelley Sane is able to craft characters distinctly enough that their dialogue isn’t interchangeable (a feat in itself in the political thriller genre), they all have about the depth of a spoon. With the exception of Alan Smith, all the players take part in conflicts of only the good-versus-evil variety, which naturally leads to a lack of development beyond an insipid characterization of either “good” or “evil.” In a film attempting to intelligently discuss a controversial American policy in dire need of discussion, black hats and white hats just won't cut it.
Indeed, Sarsgaard is the only one who sidesteps cliché with any finesse. Forced to choose between helping an ex-girlfriend he still carries a torch for by doing the right thing, or saving his career by looking the other way, he makes the difficult but more logical decision. He does it with such teeth-pulling resignation, though, that the beginnings of alcoholism are felt more strongly than they're shown. In the hands of a lesser actor, the Smith character could have been as textureless as the rest of the script. Instead, Sarsgaard does in one gesture what takes Gyllenhaal three minutes of pounding back shots of whiskey and yelling at his boss in slurred tongues.
Poor Saarsgard. He could be the next Kevin Spacey if he found a director who realized what a mammoth talent they had and showcased him rather than relegating him to the supporting cast. Rendition might have even squeaked its way into the above-average bracket if he featured more prominently. As it is, though, Rendition is little more than a well-made play, a formulaic political thriller without half the intelligence it would need to achieve the poignancy it so desperately claws at.
