Previews, Trailers for Three Hot Button Political Movies

By Norm Schrager at August 6, 2007 | 9:36 pm | Print

QUESTION: Which of these three movies are you most interested in seeing? TELL US

---

Rendition. Lions for Lambs. The Kingdom.
While attending The Bourne Ultimatum, I saw movie trailers for all three, one after another — chances are you did too. All are dramas with some relation to our dangerous presence in the Middle East. And Matthew Michael Carnahan, hot screenwriter of the season, wrote two of them.

:: THE KINGDOM
Release Date: September 28
The Cast: Jamie Foxx, Jennifer Garner, Jason Bateman, Chris Cooper, Jeremy Piven
The Director: Peter Berg (Friday Night Lights, actor in Lions for Lambs)
The Plot: After an American housing complex in Saudi Arabia is bombed, a special FBI team is deployed to investigate. Saudi officials don’t welcome them with open arms, cultures clash and tempers rise.

The Kingdom appears to be the most traditional thriller of the three; the trailer promises bombing, action and Garner looking too sexy to be an FBI operative. This is the first of Carnahan’s pair.

:: RENDITION
Release Date: October 12
The Cast: Reese Witherspoon, Jake Gyllenhaal, Meryl Streep, Alan Arkin, Peter Sarsgaard
The Director: Gavin Hood (Tsotsi, scheduled to direct Hugh Jackman in Wolverine)
The Plot: A CIA analyst (Gyllenhaal) witnesses the brutal interrogation of an Egyptian-born man suspected of terrorism. The man’s wife (Witherspoon) goes to D.C. to investigate her husband’s disappearance… and learns of a secret detention facility.

This one seems to question our Administration’s asinine definition of “torture,” and will be a sure reminder of Abu Ghraib. Conincidentally, “rendition,” the act of the CIA sending suspects elsewhere for interrogation, is mentioned briefly in The Bourne Ultimatum.

:: LIONS FOR LAMBS
Release Date: November 9
The Cast (you ready?): Tom Cruise, Meryl Streep (again!), Robert Redford, Michael Pena, Peter Berg
The Director: Robert Redford (his first since 2000′s blah The Legend of Bagger Vance)
The Plot: Two idealistic students-turned-soldiers are in real trouble while serving in Afghanistan. As a power-hungry Congressman (Cruise) may decide the soldiers’ futures, their former professor (Redford) tries to affect a disinterested student.

This is serious Oscar bait, from Redford and Carnahan, to Cruise and Streep. It’s aimed right at America’s guilt and Hollywood’s most concerned, liberal thinking. Regardless, it does sound like one of the more important story’s this year: Government power using military as pawns. Go figure.

Last thing on screenwriter Carnahan: He’s the brother of director Joe Carnahan (Narc, Smokin’ Aces) and holds a degree in international relations and political science.

Movie Previews Trailers