I should have known from the title, which I continuously mispronounced as "redemption" (and one time as "retention"), that this might not live up to the expectations I put on this film. With an all-star cast of Oscar winning talent, I was expecting greatness (or as Roger Ebert stated on a commercial on 107.9- "a perfect movie") Instead, I found myself trying way too hard to like this movie. And it took me a weekend to figure out what exactly it was that didn't connect for me. I enjoyed the acting (Telly Sevalas was awesome), and the story was set up to be pretty interesting, but it never came together. With that many great actors in that long of a movie, there should have been more to it than "torture is bad." Duh. I'm all for political messages, especially when I agree with them, but this just came across desperate to make an obvious point. Does it really take an 8-month pregnant wife (played by Reese), a six-year-old son, and an Ivy-League degree to make people feel "sympathetic" for an Egyptian guy being tortured? That feeling I was left with after the movie ended where I was "trying to figure out if I liked this movie," was really me just feeling like "wow, that was it."
With so many potentially great movies out right now, this movie is similar to leaving me a voicemail - don't bother.
Final score, on a scale from 1-10: I give this a 5
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