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

As 2007 British produced, minimalist drama Extraordinary Rendition rolls on, it eventually comes to find a sort of middle ground with both itself and its subject matter; the film an intermediate if overly and in a somewhat disappointing fashion, liberal effort depicting the sorts of negative energies and sensibilities that are born out of initial feelings of state-led hatred and paranoia. Here, the key is that state incurred hate and ill-minded attitudes placed unto its citizens it cannot trust can lead only onto further hatred; alienation and disillusionment, this time at the state on the citizen's behalf. In this regard, the film appears to reach a consensus which reads along the lines of that we should stop the titular extraordinary renditions, as they are unfair; inhumane and downright amoral. It's to the film's credit that reaching this point is the taut, dramatic and effective exercise it is, but the film as a technical exercise is about as much as it has going for it.Co-director/writer Jim Threapleton takes a lower-key, more base-level look at the sort of subject matter that it takes on. The film is not the expansive, globe trotting, narrative heavy and big-budgeted 'issue' drama Gavin Hood's 2007 film Rendition was; a film systematically weaving in character with a multi-stranded approach which worked well, ultimately a film with a similar agenda to Jim Threapleton's film about the damning nature of extraordinary renditions, but doing so by refusing to blur lines between its lead's guilt and providing us with more to get involved with. For a good stretch, Extraordinary Rendition very much feels like an awareness assignment, like a vanity project - something that exists purely to open our eyes at events or items which are unfolding on grounds not too far from home; this, much rather than a film actually prepared to aggressively tackle any sort of issue or subject material before plumbing for a stone-wall stance on the issue. In fact, it would be true to say that the film makes its points fairly quickly despite doing so dramatically and rather harrowingly.The film begins with the roar of an aeroplane in what is a noise within somewhat unrealistic proximity to that of the location we first observe; a badly beaten man, a British-Muslim, staggers through a kind of decrepit warehouse gone unused for years looking as if he's been to Hell and back. The man is Zaafir, indeed played by a British based Morrocan born talent named Omar Berdouni, whose previous roles have seen him somewhat synonymous with parts more broadly linked to that of the threat of terrorism in the Western world; specifically, United 93 or Body of Lies. The film goes on to flashback to sunnier and more welcoming hues, as a bog-standard street in a working class part of the United Kingdom is zoned in on. City establishing shots give way to shots of estates and then a specific street and then further still a house, that notion of approaching and then finding your man prominent; an aesthetic of surveillance or a greater power bearing in on a person prominently overlying proceedings.Zaafir lives with his girlfriend, someone with whom a healthy relationship is already in bloom. The man is a university lecturer, a lecturer at the sort of place of study in which the students badger back with equally enlightening opinions and views on sociological subjects, thus threatening to match that of the teacher; the sense of this educational institute being one of a rather sought after ilk prominent. On his walk home, he is inexplicably snatched from this idyllic world by a car full of what are perceived as yobs, gangster-like white British males few would want to come into contact with. Reveals give way to these men actually being government employed, their threatening anonymity and general representation from the briefness in which we initially see them that of how Zaafir perceived them – as overly threatening, commonplace yobs doing what they do. Zaafir awakes in a ship container somewhere, and is badgered and berated by men in suits additionally working for the British government demanding solutions to questions Zaafir cannot answer.The film's core is made up of a series of, albeit it admittedly well shot, bits and pieces revolving around how terrible his situation is and how horrible the men whom come and see him are. Where true substance and statements on the issue of extraditing a faceless victim, who is law abiding and with a great deal at stake family-wise, might rise to the surface, Threapleton instead provides us with a series of flashbacks embedding what we already know about his private life and constructing an image of the man as an innocent and authentic citizen. It's here the film appears to run out of things to say, that these things happen and its detrimental effect on those requisitioned, guilty of terrorism or not, is a terrible thing which ought not unfold in this manner, is a point put across fairly quickly. When certain scenes towards the end, featuring Andy Serkis, no less, and a thick Russian accent, effectively take on a version of prior events played at another gear, it is the moment the film holds up its hands and rolls over to the fact it has run out of ideas. The mere regurgitation of the specific content and documenting brutal methods of interrogation, such as water-boarding, which plays out informs us of this. The film is a technical exercise, and that is all – a film pointing something out without grappling with it but doing so in a manner which is worth recommending without getting as excited about as one did with Hood's film. Regardless, it is a film advertising certain talents both on and behind the camera; talents I would not mind seeing more of in the future.

In the last few years, torture has become an indelible part of the film industry. Exhibit A: Saw, Hostel or any season of 24 from Day 2 onwards. Exhibit B: real-life footage that ends up on the internet. After 9/11, such material, while still disturbing, is no longer a rarity, but almost a customary element to insert in genre pictures (horror and thrillers, especially if political). As the latest addition to this trend, Extraordinary Rendition provides very little that hasn't already been told, its basic plotting and documentary-like execution making it come off as a poor man's 24.Instead of examining the methods that are used to extract information from well known terrorists, Jim Threapleton's feature focuses on the secret sections of governments all over the world that abduct innocent people and throw unfounded accusations at them. One such innocent person is Zaafir (Omar Berdouni), a London-based teacher who is found brutally beaten at Heathrow Airport in the movie's opening sequence. As he recovers and his girlfriend tries to get him to tell everyone what happened, those events unfold on the screen: we are shown the kidnapping, the container where he is held at first, the plane that takes him somewhere in the Middle East, the terrifying procedures that are used on him while a mysterious interrogator (Andy "Gollum" Serkis) continuously asks the same questions about some criminal Zaafir is supposed to know.The torture sequences are gruesome, and the added realism coming from the hand-held cameras and grainy cinematography ensure Threapleton manages to shock viewers with his argument: every day people are randomly abducted and harmed in all possible ways simply because they come from certain places or are associated with somebody who in return is associated with somebody else. This point of view is reflected very well: the interrogator never supplies any actual proof of the fact that Zaafir really knew the terrorist his organization is looking for, strengthening the theory that the poor fella was taken just because he was an Arab. That it never is specified what government Serkis works for also contributes to conveying the idea of this kind of thing being common everywhere.And yet... something is missing, and that's because the director gives too much attention to the wrong section of the film:like I said before, torture is not that hard to see nowadays, meaning the largest chunk of the movie eventually becomes wearing. Too much time is wasted on the "during", while Threapleton should have cared more about constructing the "before" (providing a solid back-story that would have made the protagonist easier to empathize with) and, more crucially, the "after", analyzing the effects of these illegal actions. Sadly, that is merely a footnote in the narrative, leaving audiences understandably unimpressed by a flick that has important things to say but is unable to articulate them convincingly.

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.