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'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.
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