Reviewed by Sam Unsted
Stars Andy Serkis, Omar Berdouni, Ania Sowinski, Jimmy Yuill, Hugh Ross, Ehti Aslam, Nick Bartlett, Rami Hilmi
UK certification 15 | UK RRP £15.99 | DVD Region 2 | Runtime 77 minutes | Written and directed by Jim Threapleton
Zaafir, a political science teacher who lectures on human rights and the philosophies of terrorism, is apprehended when out on his morning jog, drugged and flown to another country to be tortured under the now infamous method of extraordinary rendition. We are then shown juxtaposed images of his imprisoned time with the goings-on in his everyday life. We are then thrown back and forth in time between his time in rendition and coming home afterwards before director Threapleton (best known as the former beau of Kate Winslet), takes us through the detention and interrogation process.
This is one of those films where the subject matter is so sensitive that the handling must be pitch-perfect else it falls either side of exploitative torture porn or anti-torture polemic. Situations and subjects like this are too complex for filmmakers to be allowed to fall into these traps. Gavin Hood’s Rendition (to which this will readily be compared) uses the actual kidnap and interrogation as a device to take on the entire political and military system, a jumping off point for a complete (if nearly entirely unsuccessful) dissection of modern American foreign policy. Extraordinary Rendition aims lower, but fails to be any more successful. Some scenes, notably those within a home environment, work to a degree in maintaining the quiet of normal life. But they are diluted by the first-time direction failings of Threapleton, working with a subject that is just too big for him. He employs far too much in the way of lense-washes to differentiate the moods of the scenes which end up heavy-handed and immature.
The torture scenes are poorly handled, essentially moving episodically through every method Threapleton can think up just to hammer home how bad it all is. This just isn’t needed. We already know torture is horrendous and unthinkable and we know about sleep deprivation, waterboarding and beatings. There is no need to chronicle atrocities in the form of a visual list replete with constant screaming and clattering noises. The characters performing the torture in these scenes too are played as thugs without remorse, revelling in the action they undertake. Serkis plays his nameless interrogator as a villain in a Bond rip-off. It’s a blinded and borderline dumb view to take of a deeply complex issue and it derails the whole project. The final few scenes, when the dénouements are handed out, are unable to salvage the film from the arena of okay-television and Threapleton seems ever more insistent as the coda strives to hammer home his message with yet more clunky teachings. The aim is true and you can’t fault what Threapleton attempted to do. But his film was too much, too soon. Give the same project to Michael Winterbottom to write and direct and you’d likely have a brilliant film on your hands.
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