From the pre-Talking Movies archives.
An Egyptian man resident in America (Metwally) is the victim of extraordinary rendition to Morocco where a CIA agent (Gyllenhaal) ‘observes’ his interrogation. In Washington the man’s wife (Witherspoon) tries to find out what has happened with the help of a friend (Saarsgard), an aide to a key Senator (Arkin).
Oh My God, it’s Syriana: Part 2. Once again a small army of talented actors stand around waiting for someone to throw them some dramatic meat they can get their teeth into. And again with the baffling idea that constantly intercutting between nothing happening in four different stories is an artistically impressive substitute for developing any of those plot-strands. This film may have some use as a compendium of torture techniques, from water-boarding to electrocution via naked beatings, but if it’s meant to be anything other than a CIA training manual it fails badly.
The CIA does not torture people of course. It merely hands them over to people who will. Of course Jake Gyllenhaal’s Agent Freeman has a crisis of conscience as he ‘observes’ Fawal (Kojak lookalike Yigal Naor) torturing the unfortunate Anwar. Of course Reese Witherspoon runs up against a brick wall in Washington as Peter Sarsgaard is warned off by his Senator with the line “If you want to be the guy who never compromises, go join Amnesty International!” But the logic of the French General in 1960s classic The Battle of Algiers has become unnervingly convincing, if you want to beat an enemy this hate-filled you have to go to extremes too, or you will lose.
The tricksy structure of the film revealed at the end of the film is deeply pointless. At first as it’s telegraphed well in advance it seems like a leap into poetic metaphor for the cycle of violence, then you think that it’s flat out fantasy and makes a nonsense of the whole film, then you slap your thigh and go ‘By Gad Sir I get it!’ and realise that it’s still lame even though it makes sense. It’s also quite easy to miss if you’ve dozed off as is highly likely by that point. If you have nodded off on waking you should just point at the screen, mumble “You’re the Canadian” in a stoned manner, and leave. You won’t have missed anything.
1/5
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