|

New This Week
Critics & Publications
Archives: A-Z Index
Advanced Search
Upcoming Release Calendar
Awards & Bests By Year
All-Time High Scores
All-Time Low Scores
How Metascores Are Calculated
Discuss Film In Our Forums

63
11th Hour, The
47
27 Dresses
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
81
Bamako
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
47
Bella
68
Business of Being Born, The
69
Charlie Wilson's War
64
Cloverfield
30
Cover
68
Delirious
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
43
Final Season, The
41
First Sunday
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
65
Great Debaters, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
52
Hollywood Dreams
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
81
Juno
70
Lars and the Real Girl
47
Lions for Lambs
41
Mad Money
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
xx
Moondance Alexander
53
Music Within
77
Nanking
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
24
One Missed Call
74
Orphanage, The
30
Over Her Dead Body
39
P.S. I Love You
37
P2
46
Reservation Road
55
Resurrecting the Champ
57
Romulus, My Father
85
Savages, The
78
Starting Out in the Evening
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
57
Teeth
92
There Will Be Blood
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
32
Untraceable
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
68
War Dance
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
43
Youth Without Youth
92
Diving Bell and the Butterfly, The
92
There Will Be Blood
85
Savages, The
84
Before the Devil Knows You're Dead
83
Sweeney Todd: The Demon Barber of Fleet Street
81
Juno
81
Bamako
78
Starting Out in the Evening
77
Nanking
74
Orphanage, The
71
Water Horse: Legend of the Deep, The
71
Manda Bala (Send a Bullet)
70
Lars and the Real Girl
69
Charlie Wilson's War
68
Business of Being Born, The
68
Delirious
68
War Dance
65
Great Debaters, The
64
Cloverfield
63
Walk Hard: The Dewey Cox Story
63
11th Hour, The
63
Hannah Takes the Stairs
60
I Want Someone to Eat Cheese With
57
Romulus, My Father
57
Teeth
55
Resurrecting the Champ
53
Music Within
52
Hollywood Dreams
51
Golden Compass, The
49
Good Night, The
47
Bella
47
Lions for Lambs
47
27 Dresses
46
Reservation Road
44
Nina's Heavenly Delights
43
Youth Without Youth
43
Final Season, The
41
Mad Money
41
First Sunday
39
Alvin and the Chipmunks
39
P.S. I Love You
38
Trailer Park Boys: The Movie
37
P2
32
Untraceable
30
Over Her Dead Body
30
Cover
29
Aliens vs. Predator: Requiem
24
One Missed Call
15
In the Name of the King: A Dungeon Siege Tale
7
Hottie and the Nottie, The
xx
Moondance Alexander
Stars indicate the most critically-acclaimed movies.
|
Rendition
New Line Cinema
FILM:
MPAA RATING: R for torture/violence and language
Starring
Reese Witherspoon,
Jake Gyllenhaal,
Meryl Streep,
Alan Arkin,
and
Peter Sarsgaard
When an Egyptian-born chemical engineer disappears on a flight from South Africa to Washington, his American wife desperately tries to track him down. Meanwhile, a CIA analyst at a secret detention facility outside the U.S. is forced to question his assignment as he becomes party to the man's unorthodox interrogation. (New Line Cinema)
| GENRE(S): |
Suspense/Thriller
|
| WRITTEN BY: |
Kelley Sane
|
| DIRECTED BY: |
Gavin Hood
|
| RELEASE DATE: |
DVD: February 19, 2008
Theatrical: October 19, 2007
|
| RUNNING TIME: |
120 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: |
USA / South Africa |

All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
100
Chicago Sun-Times
Roger Ebert
Rendition is valuable and rare. As I wrote from Toronto: "It is a movie about the theory and practice of two things: torture and personal responsibility. And it is wise about what is right, and what is wrong."

88
TV Guide
Ken Fox
Taut, powerfully acted political thriller.

75
Christian Science Monitor
Peter Rainer
About two-thirds of the way through, Rendition takes a bad turn and sells out most of what made it worth watching in the first place. Witherspoon is given little to do except look weepy, Freeman's change of heart is Q.E.D., and the radical Islamist subplot overwhelms the action, which becomes so confusingly structured that I thought the projectionist had misplaced a reel.

75
New York Daily News
Jack Mathews
There are some problems with the pacing, but this topical thriller about CIA-sanctioned torture is one of the most important "message" movies of the year.

75
The Globe and Mail (Toronto)
Rick Groen
A rarity – a political film that delivers its timely message with a cinematic punch and no undue speechifying.

75
San Francisco Chronicle
Mick LaSalle
A maddening film, maddening in a good way, but maddening nonetheless.

70
Chicago Reader
J.R. Jones
Occasionally a movie's subject outweighs any aesthetic flaws, as it does in this unsettling thriller about the extraordinary rendition of terror suspects.

63
Charlotte Observer
Lawrence Toppman
The movie Rendition asks, admittedly in a one-sided way, whether the ends justify these means.

63
USA Today
Claudia Puig
While the ingredients are there to make a tense and compelling post-9/11 thriller, Rendition falls flat.

60
Empire
Angie Errigo
Disappointingly dull given the explosive subject matter, this at least attempts to get a message into the mainstream. An extra star for effort rather than execution.

60
New York Magazine
David Edelstein
The jumping around is as deft as a hippo in a tutu, and the director, Gavin Hood, never finds a rhythm.

60
Los Angeles Times
Carina Chocano
Rendition offers few surprises, and it tips its hand too soon and too predictably to do much more than goose your weary outrage.

58
Entertainment Weekly
Owen Gleiberman
Rendition certainly makes the case that torture, whatever name it goes under, is indefensible, yet one can agree with that view entirely and still feel that the movie is just a borderline exploitation of what anyone who reads the papers already knows.

58
Seattle Post-Intelligencer
William Arnold
The movie is not exciting, original or instructive enough to justify the unpleasant experience.

50
Newsweek
David Ansen
Manages to take an urgent, important topic and turn it into standard Hollywood melodrama. What a waste.

50
The New York Times
A.O. Scott
A well-meaning, honorable movie. Which is not to say that it is a very good one.

50
Slate
Dana Stevens
Forget the thin characters and showoffy temporal structure. Rendition's worst flaw is its political deck-stacking.

50
Washington Post
Ann Hornaday
Reese Witherspoon paces and cries through Rendition in a performance that does as much a disservice to her talent as the movie does to the issues it raises.

50
The Hollywood Reporter
Kirk Honeycutt
Rendition tackles the concern in a heavy-handed thriller with simplistic characters and manipulative story lines.

50
New York Post
Kyle Smith
Rendition has the depth of a bumper sticker without the brevity.

50
Austin Chronicle
Marjorie Baumgarten
Intelligent and well-meaning, Rendition is nevertheless an oversimplified and uneven attempt to arouse righteous indignation among its viewers.

50
Chicago Tribune
Michael Phillips
In Rendition Gyllenhaal is supposed to be the smartest one in the room, yet he’s essentially just a good-looking plodder. And despite its whirligig story machinations, so is Rendition.

50
Rolling Stone
Peter Travers
What a cast, indeed. And what a bust as persuasive drama.

50
The Onion (A.V. Club)
Scott Tobias
With a cast this stacked, the performances are predictably strong (particularly from Sarsgaard, whose slow-burning role recalls his work in Shattered Glass), but the first impression they make is the same as the last.

50
ReelViews
James Berardinelli
The film's disappointingly black-and-white approach robs characters and situations of badly needed ambiguity.

50
Village Voice
Ella Taylor
Unlike Hood's far more persuasive gangster picture "Tsotsi," Rendition feels generic and lackluster.

50
Variety
Todd McCarthy
By underplaying the melodrama in the presumed hope of seeming subtle when Kelley Sane’s script is so baldly melodramatic, the “Tsotsi” helmer drains the life out of an obviously explosive subject.

50
Philadelphia Inquirer
Carrie Rickey
One reason to see Rendition is for Naor's stunning performance as the torturer who is the one character aware of the political and moral contradictions of what he's doing. Every time he was on screen, he commanded it.

50
Baltimore Sun
Michael Sragow
Painfully boring.

50
Boston Globe
Wesley Morris
Rendition is a reminder that, in the wrong hands, political outrage can be a slog.

50
Miami Herald
Rene Rodriguez
None of the actors is able to do much with their characters, because they are all playing game pieces on a schematic board. Rendition has passion to spare, but it is saddled with a story designed exclusively to drive home the filmmakers' message.

50
Premiere
Glenn Kenny
If it makes anybody feel better, one character in the picture does point out that the whole "extraordinary rendition" concept originated with Clinton. So there's balance for you.

50
Salon.com
Stephanie Zacharek
If these new, allegedly topical movies are to make us feel anything -- to move us toward any action or even just toward any fresh realization -- they need to at least seem alive on the screen, instead of just courting our polite, measured applause.

42
Portland Oregonian
Shawn Levy
Overheated claptrap that takes an issue of vital national importance and turns it into an inept cartoon that emboldens the worst instincts in our national character.


The average user rating for this movie is 7.1 (out of 10) based on 46 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Read more user comments...
Discuss this movie in our forums |