Why don't you ask your boss how badly he wants to stick his neck out for a terrorist

Warning: Some spoilers

It's been about a month since I saw Rendition, but I've been lazy about writing. It's a movie about a despicable practice by the US Government called Extraordinary Rendition where we kidnap suspected terrorists and send them abroad to avoid any pesky issues with things like due process, constitutional rights, or laws that govern how you treat captives.

The movie is all about congratulating liberals over being disgusted by this practice, and true to form I felt mighty congratulated while I watched it. I found it to be easy to watch (except some of the torture bits) with interesting characters and a good flow. It wasn't until after the movie when I started to think about it, and realized this movie really missed the boat.

The problem is they didn't really even try. The suspected terrorist here is so clearly not a terrorist. He's lived in the US for most of his life, is a highly paid professional, and has pregnant wife and son. Then to play on some audience prejudices he speaks excellent English and is married to a cute white girl (Reese Witherspoon.) This means you're watching the whole movie thinking this is despicable and ridiculous, because this guy is clearly innocent. The problem is that when the guy is clearly innocent there is zero moral gray area to explore.

It's easy to think extraordinary rendition is terrible when the victim is innocent. The tougher thing is how do you feel about it when it's an honest to goodness terrorist, or maybe just someone who is heavily involved with terrorists. Now there's some meaty morality stuff to consider.

A large part of our justice system is based on treating guilty people with humanity and respect, not presuming people are guilty until they're convicted, and error on the side of innocence if you're not sure. The idea here is even guilty people are people, and it's better to let some guilty people go free than to wrongly convict some innocent people.

If you start digging into those questions I think you'd have the capacity for a much better film. Show some extraordinary rendition with a victim the audience doesn't like. Then challenge them to think about if it's right or wrong in that case. I'll also claim this will get further in a quest to change people's minds about the practice too. In Rendition the guy is so clearly innocent and likable, unless you're already a liberal government cynic it's hard to believe this could actually happen. But it's easy to believe it could happen with an unlikable guy who is actually involved with terrorism. Show people that situation, get them to understand it's wrong even in those circumstances, and then you'll get them on your side for real.

Labels: Movie

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