By Karyn L. Beach

Rendition is a sobering drama that asks provocatively whether or not it's okay to engage in a bit of terror in an effort to catch a terrorist. Do the ends really justify the means? Is torture okay if our intentions are good? Is it less American if it's done on foreign soil? Well-made and well-acted, Rendition puts its cards on the table and lets you decide for yourself.

Anwar El-Ibrahimi (Omar Metwally) is an Egyptian-born, American-bred chemical engineer. He's spent 20 years in the States, gone to school here, made friends here, married the ultimate all-American girl Isabella (Reese Witherspoon), with whom he has an adorable little boy and a baby on the way. On his way home from a business trip in South Africa, a suicide bomber in Northern Africa ends up killing 19 people including an American CIA agent. As he deboards the plane, El-Ibrahimi is detained by the CIA. Apparently, the chemical engineer has received several calls placed to his phone over the past year from a known terrorist. Corrine Whitman (Meryl Streep), in charge of national security, gives the go-ahead to put El-Ibrahimi into the rendition program where he is ushered off to another country (somewhere in Northern Africa) to be 'interrogated' by an intelligence official from that country (so technically the US can say that it does not engage in torture). Assigned to observe the proceedings is CIA operative Douglas Freeman (Jake Gyllenhaal) who's reluctantly thrusts into this position. Here the interrogation is being carried out by Abasi Fawal (Yigal Naor). Abasi has his own problems as his teenage daughter Fatima (Zineb Oukach) has run away to be with her boyfriend Khalid (Moa Khouas).

Director Gavin Hood (who won the Academy Award for Best Foreign Film with Tsotsi) and screenwriter Kelley Sane do a great job of keeping everything moving as we move back and forth from story to story and country to country. What impressed me about this movie is that even though it does have the big political message, it didn't really ever get to heavy-handed or mired down in the politics that the characters and the plot became secondary. They chose to get their message out by telling the story and the emotions and actions of the characters. It had its 'preachy' moments but they were thankfully few and far between.

Reese Witherspoon was solid as the anguished wife who wants to know what happened to her husband. Meryl Streep also delivers as the icy Corrine who truly believes that she's doing the right thing. Jake Gyllenhaal was also very good as a guy who's in over his head and who ultimately takes a decisive action.

Some of the torture was hard to watch and I had to look away a couple of times. However, this is a well-done political drama that is worth your time. If you want a movie that gives you something to talk about afterwards, Rendition is the one.