Colibel
Terrible acting, screenplay and direction.
Limerculer
A waste of 90 minutes of my life
Kaydan Christian
A terrific literary drama and character piece that shows how the process of creating art can be seen differently by those doing it and those looking at it from the outside.
Kamila Bell
This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.
david-weston60
I read the case for this film and thought this sounds good. I check out reviews on here and thought could be very good but I was bitterly disappointed. This film struggles to keep you watching it. It is almost like they didn't know where to focus their attention. The acting wasn't amazing, its also a really short film (almost as if they were struggling for enough film time) it was just a really bad film. Makes a lot more sense on why I was able to buy it from pound land now. I DO NOT recommend this film unless you are looking for something to write a bad review about on here, in which case its perfect.Low budget, little talent and just not well made.That's 77 minutes of my life I would like back please
ed_two_o_nine
This is a very good film that deals with an extremely challenging issue in a though provoking and humane way. This movie from first time director Jim Threapleton (I knew I recognised the name, him being the ex partner of Kate Winslett) is not easy viewing as it is not meant to be. The film is the story of Zaafir (an excellent Omar Berdouni) a university lecturer who deals with contentious issues such as democracy coming out of periods of violence and is also involved in programmes that promote learning in the Islamic world. Zaafir is suddenly taken of the streets by unnamed US and British agents and then transferred to an unnamed county to be questioned / tortured all in the name of justice. The torturer in chief is never named as they would not be but is played excellently by Andy Serkiss with the right amount of evil and malice mixed with the compassion he needs to draw information. The torture sequences are rightly hard to watch and you begin to see how confessions gained in such conditions truly are worthless. The film is well directed and the editing serves the story well switching from before the kidnapping tgo after the kidnapping to show how the events not only affect Zaafir bit all those close to him especially his partner. Indeed some of the scenes between them the dialogue is intentionally very low in the mix as the raw emotions of the torture play out. Highly recommended.
paul2001sw-1
'Extraordinary Rendition' is a story about the kidnap and torture of foreign citizens by agents of the United States, in the context of suspected involvement of Islamic terrorism. But unlike Michael Winterbottom's 'The Road to Guantamano', which explored a similar theme, it eschews details for psychological insight into what it means to be tortured. There's an obvious message: say that people find God in adversity, or that the demonisation of Isalm is a self-fulfilling prophesy, but "we" are fighting this war in the wrong way on pragmatic grounds, even without consideration of the moral question. But the absence of specifics in this movie lets it down: there are echoes of the nightmare of '1984' about the vision it portrays, but while it serves as a warning, the story doesn't quite ring true - the suspect is made to endure a highly targetted and personal interrogation but we never learn why - and without definite context, the film risks making nothing more than the banal observation that torture is bad. The C.I.A. do kidnap and torture - but Winston Smith was justly guilty in the eyes of Big Brother, and you have to read the part of Orwell's book where Winston is free before you read the part about his imprisonment to truly understand. But this film makes no definite statements away from the torture chamber; making for a harrowing half-story, but a half-story nonetheless.
Chris_Docker
I suppose one of the things about living in a developed country is having things nicely packaged.If I eat meat, I don't want to be presented with vivid descriptions of slaughterhouses. News programmes can show pictures of fighting in Iraq, but detailed close-ups of severed limbs are inappropriate. But if I think food has caused unnecessary suffering or illegal cruelty I might want to know. If our boys abroad fighting for king and country have raped or pillaged, I expect them to be brought to justice. No gory details, you understand. Just do something about it.Words package things. In some cases, we can always work it out if we want a bigger picture. Foie gras. Eliminate an enemy target. Regime change. Go to the bathroom. Spare me the details.So what about phrases like extraordinary rendition? waterboarding? Well I can explain these, I think. Extraordinary rendition is when a terrorist suspect is transported to a foreign country. Waterboarding - there's been some human rights arguments over whether that's torture or not. You pour water on someone. They worry they're drowning. Doesn't sound very nice, but not like pouring acid on them or the really nasty stuff.The truth is, we don't have the vocabulary for things we've never imagined. Not just the words. The emotional vocabulary is lacking.Extraordinary Rendition follows Zaafir, a London-based academic. Suddenly he is snatched from the streets, locked in a shipping container, drugged and abused. He wakes up in a foreign country where he is tortured. Various details of his life come forward where erroneous assumptions could be made. As director Jim Threapleton says, "It's about the footprints we all leave in our lives. Whether it's your credit card statements, or destinations you travelled to in your year off, or an email you may or may not have opened. Under scrutiny, that can be misinterpreted or appropriated to an agenda." Eventually, Zaafir is released without charge.The film uses flashbacks and flash-forwards to tell the three segments of his life. His normal life as a teacher with friends and family. His traumatised self when he returns (and his uncompreheding wife). Horrific experiences abroad.That horrific segment is simply quite graphic. Waterboarding ceases to be a concept, hiding behind nicely packaged words. It's scary sh*t. Not that they stop at that. They do the more traditionally 'really nasty stuff' too.Extraordinary Rendition comes from a minute budget and no little integrity. It is careful not to point accusatory fingers (the truth is always more complicated), but equally careful in its researching of hundreds of cases. It was made with the assistance of Amnesty International. At the Edinburgh UK Premiere, producer Andy Noble was careful not to overstate facts (but he was equally knowledgeable and demonstrated a firm grasp of the data on the many real cases from which the story was inspired).The main drawback of Extraordinary Rendition is its narrative structure. As soon as we know the three different sections of Zaafir's life, not a lot is added by way of plot development. I also felt the story should stand on its own without the addition of background drumming and wailing for added effect (although the diegetic sounds of a person being tortured in an adjacent room were very effective.) As a work of fiction focussing on human rights, as a protest film, it is first rate. But as cinema entertainment it may well be swamped by similar themed films using larger budgets. Like the Hollywood version (called simply 'Rendition') due for mainstream distribution only months after the release of this film.