Frank

Ever since British journalist Stephen Grey, exposed the nefarious activities of CIA agents abducting suspected terrorists and flying them to secret detentions centers to be tortured, I've been intrigued how the Hollywood studios would reproduce a big screen version of such a practice at a time when the so-called war on terror remains the biggest foreign policy objective of the Bush administration.

And so it was with much anticipation that I went to see "Rendition," and to my surprise found that director, Gavin Hood, is a fellow South African, a fact I learned only in the closing credits. Given that the only other known export from the country is one Charlize Theron, there was admittedly a measure of pride, but after two hours, any lingering biases disappeared as quickly as government spies could whisk away a suspected Al-Qaeda operative.

The film stars Jake Gyllenhaal as CIA analyst Douglas Freeman, who appears more suited to deskwork than being assigned to a case file involving Egyptian-born American Anwar El-Ibrahimi, (Omar Metwally) who disappears en route from South Africa to Washington. Anwar's pregnant wife, Isabella El-Ibrahimi (Reese Witherspoon), is waiting for his arrival at the airport, and unbeknownst to her, he is abducted by the CIA and flown to a secret location outside the country where he is brutally tortured for information regarding his links with a terrorist. Isabella then begins a desperate search for her husband and her anxiety over his whereabouts becomes the focal point of the movie.

It's a compelling and topical story which mirrors real-life experiences of families who've agonized over the disappearance of loved ones. It's a fresh topic in the spy genre and "Rendition," is likely to be the first of many Hollywood films that explores variations of this extraordinary and controversial practice that has seen some European countries secure arrest warrants for CIA agents known to be involved in illegally abducting foreign nationals. There's also the startling case of Maher Arar, whose false arrest and abduction could make for a moving real-life drama that looks at how the Syrian-born Canadian was taken from John F. Kennedy International Airport to Syria where he was held for a year and regularly tortured because of his alleged links to Al-Qaeda. It turns out that the Canadian government had provided false intelligence to U.S. authorities and Arar was released and awarded a settlement of more than $10 million Canadian dollars.

It's against this backdrop that Director Gavin Hood makes his Hollywood debut with "Renditions," presumably on the strength of his last film, "Tsotsi," a South African-made drama about an urban gangster. The movie won an Academy Award in 2005 as the Best Foreign Language film. With Meryl Streep and Alan Arkin in supporting roles in "Rendition," Hood has an all-star cast that's enough to intimidate any newcomer to the big screen. When he was studying film at UCLA, he showed he was up to the demands of Hollywood when he flatly refused requests by producers to alter a script called "The Reasonable Man." Chances are it that it could have been made into a film and Hood might have enjoyed the limelight earlier in his career, but his stubbornness showed that if anything, he could be a most (un)reasonable man.

By asserting his own artistic independence, Hood signaled that he had every intention of doing things his way. That's commendable, but "Rendition," hardly has any bold signature that reflects the director's particular visual style, much as say one might identify the fast-paced and witty dialogue interspersed with graphic violence as particular to Quentin Tarantino or Robert Redford's trademark suspense-filled political thrillers, like Spy Game and the much anticipated Lions for Lambs.

"Rendition" makes no major departure from a predictable plot that is compounded by some insipid performances by the lead cast. The storyline is as straightforward as a suspected terrorist being abducted, tortured and possibly released into the worrying arms of his wife, who for dramatic effect is pregnant.

What is puzzling though is that the CIA, in the guise of Gyllenhaal's character, shows discomfort at Anwar being tortured by his Egyptian captors. This despite the fact that the very purpose of the CIA's rendition tactics in the film is to convey a message of ruthless agents bent on subverting domestic and international laws by condoning torture whether or not their targets are innocent. Douglas has so much of a conscience that it leads him to drug and alcohol-induced excesses and in an amusing comeback in which he is rebuked by his senior, Corinne Whitman (Meryl Streep) for having doubts about Anwar's guilt, replies: "It's my first torture," to which she responds that the U.S. does not torture.

Hood directs without any flair and artistry. We don't get to see any sophisticated technological gimmickry waged by the limitless financial resources of the war on terror machinery. In an age where viewers are becoming accustomed to high tech spectacle and engaging melodrama, "Rendition," offers very entertainment value. As a political thriller, it lacks the depth and suspense that covert activities lend to mystery and intrigue, as evidenced in say Tony Scott's Enemy of the State. Hood doesn't exact any deeply emotional performances from either of the lead stars. Isabella is not convincing as the emotionally distraught wife intent on finding her missing husband. Douglas on the other hand has parts where there's no dialogue for prolonged periods and even then his character hardly strikes viewers as a man deeply troubled by injustice.

Welcome to the unforgiving world of Hollywood Mr Hood. As a compatriot, I'm rooting for you to carve your own identity in the way some of your southern hemisphere counterparts Peter Jackson (Lord of the Rings) and Baz Luhrmann (Moulin Rouge) have done. And on the present showing, it's going to take a lot more than "Rendition" for box office success.