Extraordinary Rendition

SYNOPSIS

This drama ploughs much the same detention-without-trial furrow as the same year's Jake Gyllenhaal/Reese Witherspoon political thriller Rendition, only with a British slant, and with rather more emphasis on the detention's after-effects. A teacher of Middle East extraction is snatched off the streets of London by shadier elements of the British security forces, and whisked abroad to a hell-hole prison for interrogation and torture. As the detainee, Omar Berdouni suffers manfully for his art, while Andy Serkis (Gollum in the Lord of the Rings movies) is nicely understated as his interrogator. It's a decent enough film, but rather overshadowed by its starrier American counterpart.