Rendition is about the policy of extraordinary rendition that was enacted after 9/11. It allows the U.S. to seize people they suspect of ties to terrorism and ship them off to other countries to be tortured. Sometimes these folks end up in Guantanamo, sometimes they arrive back home months or years later, permanently scarred from brutal mental and physical torture, sometimes they're never heard from again. There are no official evidence or charges brought against them and they are not granted the right of a hearing to determine their guilt or innocence. In the movie, Reese Witherspoon is preggers and her husband is an Egyptian-born U.S. resident. He is "arrested" on his way back into the country from a conference in South Africa and shipped over to North Africa for "questioning." It's a heart-rending story, and it's chilling to think of how many times this has actually happened with our government's complicity.
In the Valley of Elah is about a soldier who goes missing after his unit comes back from Iraq. His father (Tommy Lee Jones), a former soldier himself, goes looking for him. What he discovers about his son's actions and those of his soldier buddies in Iraq is eye-opening and beyond disturbing. This one is about the effect war, specifically the Iraq war, is having on our soldiers and their minds.
Having watched both of these back-to-back, I feel it's more important than ever that we get new, moral, ethical leadership in Washington. Someone who can stop and hopefully reverse some of the awful damage that has been done to America's reputation in the world and to the psyches of those we put on the front lines. I highly recommend both films.