Details

Release year: 2007

Storyline

When a terrorist bombing in North Africa kills 19 incl. an American, an Egyptian chemical engineer flying from South Africa to his wife in USA, is arrested upon arriving in USA. He disappears. His wife asks a senator for help.

Top credits

Directors

Gavin Hood

Writers

Kelley Sane

Cast

Reese Witherspoon — Isabella Fields El-Ibrahimi
Jake Gyllenhaal — Douglas Freeman
Peter Sarsgaard — Alan Smith
Alan Arkin — Senator Hawkins

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Did you know

• Based on the true story of Khaled El-Masri, a German citizen who was mistaken for Khalid al-Masri, rumored to have been involved with the September 11, 2001 terrorist attacks. In 2004, El-Masri was arrested and transferred to a "black" site in Afghanistan where he was interrogated, beaten, sexually abused, and tortured for five months before the C.I.A. released him, admitting that his capture and torture were a mistake.

• The quote, "I fear you speak upon the rack where men enforced do speak anything" (a man undergoing torture will say anything to make the pain stop) is from Act 3 Scene 2 of The Merchant of Venice by William Shakespeare.

• The movie never confirms whether the renditioned individual is innocent, or wrongly accused, or a terrorist, or correctly discovered as one. One theory the filmmakers suggested is that he was not a terrorist, but was set up by a terrorist cell who put his information on a cell phone that they knew would be discovered by the C.I.A. and lead them to the wrong guy while they got away scott-free.