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Reviews
Rendition (2007)
An OK movie, but it could have been much more
This movie is decent watching, but it could have been so much more; instead, it went for a facile political point, and as a result was so much less than it could have been.
When the rendition subject, Anwar, finally 'confesses', I had a number of complex reactions. I'd just been thinking 'why is Abasi Fawal, his interrogator, torturing this guy for no reason' after Freeman, the troubled CIA observer, had concluded Anwar didn't know anything (which was my conclusion too), and then boom! So then my reaction was 'wow, Fawal really did know his job, he knew Anwar was holding something back; and Freeman was just being weak, and I also don't know squat about how much people can really take'. I was also thinking 'wow, Anwar must have been really dedicated to Rashid, the real terrorist, to hold out that long, protecting him'.
And they could have done interesting things with that twist: e.g. take the simple model in most people's minds, and bend it back on them - as I started to, above, before I realized the film hadn't gone for the subtle twist, but rather the cheap, easy, obvious one. There are all sorts of interesting things they could have done with that - e.g. examined in some depth if it's ever right to inflict pain in a war, against people who don't play by any rules, etc.
Instead we get: so when you torture innocent people who know nothing, they lie to make the pain stop. Gee, I never thought of that.
And we see the pain of Anwar and his wife - which is fine, but if you gave Anwar and his wife the choice of being Anwar and his wife, or a husband who died in 9/11 in the towers and his wife, which do you think they'd pick? There are worse things that what happened to Anwar and his family - and in war, bad things happen to lots of people who don't deserve it - ask Bosnian Muslims who suffered horribly in the Yugoslav civil war about that.
An OK movie, but it could have been so much better (like 'The Kingdom', which despite several faults with still slightly better than this).
Heir to an Execution (2004)
Mildly interesting, but probably not for the reasons the filmmakers intended
If you're looking for a good, even-handed overview of the Rosenberg case, this isn't it, but it is nevertheless not without interest.
It's not a good overview for two reasons. First, the movie spends little time looking at the actual facts of the case, focusing instead mostly on the effects on the family left behind. This can be excused, since it wasn't the intent of the filmmaker to cover the case itself. Second, and less excusable, the movie seems essentially uninformed by much of the evidence that has come out in the last decade (e.g. from Soviet intelligence archives) which provides unambiguous answers as to what the Rosenbergs actually did.
For instance, you won't hear here that documents in the Soviet archives explicitly describe Ethel Rosenberg helping to recruit David Greenglass to pass on atomic bomb construction details from Los Alamos. Ethel may not have deserved the death penalty for what she did, but it's hard to put much weight on any opinions this movie expresses on the subject, given its reliance on the pro-Rosenberg side for its view of the case.
That one-sidedness, however, is what is responsible for one of the film's two real accomplishments: giving the viewer a clear view of the mind-set of the American left in the 30's and 40's, one in which spying for a foreign power for ideological reasons was not merely acceptable, but laudable, and one in which the bald-faced claims of the complete innocence of the Rosenbergs were credulously accepted. The interviews with the aging members of the American left alone are worth the time of a serious student of the era.
The other interesting aspect of the movie is its clear documentation of the havoc the Rosenbergs' wreaked on their family. As a number of reviewers have pointed out, this is not a polished film, but the lack of polish contributes to the effectiveness of this portrayal. The Rosenbergs' willingness to put their family through this is perhaps the best measure of the depth of their devotion to the socialist cause, and helps us understand how they could have helped pass some of their country's deepest secrets to a foreign power.
Gardens of Stone (1987)
A forgotten gem
This movie is little-watched compared to Coppola's other Viet Nam movie, "Apocalypse Now", which is unfortunate, because it's a gem. Taking a device straight out of Aeschylus' masterpiece "The Persians", the war itself is almost entirely an off-screen presence (except for a few atmospheric news-reel clips, which serve to separate acts, as it were). Instead, like "The Persians", it considers the war through its effects on those at home, and does a generally excellent job.
It is particularly good at showing the view from inside the military "family", both of that life in general, and the effects of Viet Nam in particular. James Caan and James Earl Jones (the latter especially) turn in fine performances as veteran non-coms (the backbone of any army). One reviewer condemned D.B. Sweeney's portrayal of the young gung-ho recruit Willow because he sounded as if he were reading his line from cue cards - which rather misses the point, which is that because the green Willow doesn't know what it's really like, the slogans he repeats inevitably sound tinny and false.
Despite a few flaws (e.g. Mary Stuart Masterton's character is rather under-developed, and a few scenes are clangers), overall this is one of the greatest of all Viet Nam movies.