Extraordinary Rendition is a film that addresses a chilling practice of western governments under the label of anti-terrorism, that of kidnapping someone that they suspect of being involved in terrorist activities and flying them to a country where the human rights laws do not apply, thus allowing them to perform some hideous acts of torture in order to extract information.

The film follows one such story, that of a teacher who gets his pupils involved in a debate regarding terrorism versus freedom fighters, and a few days later is kidnapped, locked in a transport crate, and sent off to some foreign land for torture and interrogation.

You can read the full review of the film right here on Filmstalker, and so on with the DVD review.

Widescreen 16x9
The picture holds up well on DVD, and in fact there's part of me that would say the picture looks even better on DVD than the big screen. There are lots of dark scenes, some mixed with intense light for moments of torture, and the picture copes well throughout. Sometimes it can be a little grainy, particularly in the natural lit flat of the couple, but it's not that different from the big screen picture.

Dolby Digital 2.0
There's not much movement of the audio, but we do get some side to side movement with planes flying overhead and such. Other than that the stereo sound isn't really that engaged.

Audio Commentary with Director and Producer, Interview with Omar Bedouni and Jim Threapleton at Edinburgh
Audio Commentary with Director and Producer
The audio commentary is rather interesting and gives some insight into the lower budget production, some of the choices made behind the scenes, and also some thoughts on the practice of rendition.

I learned some interesting facts from the film, that a lot of it was improvised, in fact so much so that relatively simple scenes were in fact filmed for some time, repeated again and again to get different versions and dialogue through the improvisation. They ended up with a huge amount of footage to edit down into the final film. We also heard many positive things about the lead actor and just how low the budget really was.

Interview with Omar Bedouni and Jim Threapleton at Edinburgh
The interview is interesting and reveals a little more, but most of it we heard in the audio commentary. I would have expected a little more from Omar Bedouni, but he turns out to be very much like his character in the film, quiet, but you want to hear something more from an actor in an interview.

This doesn't do a great deal to improve on the film offering. There aren't that many extras and the audio commentary could have benefited from having some of the actors talking about the film too, particularly as we hear that most of it was improvised.

If you like the film then this DVD will offer slightly more, but it is sorely lacking some additional extras such as deleted scenes, making of, and some more from the actors, and considering the subject matter perhaps a few extras about the real life acts of rendition.

I have to say that I'm disappointed with the DVD offering, and this could have been a lot better.

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UK IMDB Film Details