Oct. 18, 2007 - Brad Jamieson

n Rendition, Omar Metwally plays Anwar El-Ibrahimi, a chemical engineer, born in Egypt and a 20-year resident of the U.S., who has successfully worked his way up to a $200,000-a-year consulting position. Born in Egypt, he left the country at age 14 and has lived a picket fence life in the U.S. ever since. While having a Green Card, he is not a U.S. citizen yet. He is happily married and his second child is on the way.
But after a series of coincidences while he is out of the country on a business trip, his cozy life is ripped apart when he is kidnapped (but never actually arrested) by the CIA in Washington, D.C. and taken out of the country on a private plane.
You see, a bomb has gone off on a busy city street in North Africa, killing a CIA agent, and the agency chief (Meryl Streep) wants answers. The CIA feels Anwar is involved due to records of a few cell phone calls made to him from someone who may only coincidentally have the same name as a known terrorist, which Anwar vehemently denies. So the former business man is shipped to a Moroccan jail and beaten unconscious on a daily basis.
But the CIA feel they have their man (the title refers to the Bush-approved invention of 'Extraordinary Rendition," a custom of sending an American terror suspect to another country where torture is utilized). CIA field paper-pusher Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) oversees the torture, but with mixed messages: One moment he is torturing Anwar, the next he's boozing the night away in a haze of guilt.