MovieChat Forums > Rendition (2007) Discussion > A chronological timeline of the movie

A chronological timeline of the movie

posted 14 years ago by chipandluna
7 replies | jump to latest

A lot of people are confused by the order of events in the movie, so I decided to make a chronological timeline.

BEFORE THE FILM:
* Anwar's uncle Yusef in Egypt buys a used phone once owned by Rashid Salimi. Whenever Anwar calls his uncle, it looks like he is actually calling Salimi.
* Fawal kills or orders the killing of Khalid's terrorist brother. Khalid begins stalking Fawal and his family. To put his plan of revenge in place, he gets close to Fawal's oldest daughter Fatima.
* Fatima moves out of her parents house and in with her aunt because Fawal does not approve of her dating someone he has not arranged for her.

IN THE FILM:
* When Fatima's aunt is at work, she regularly goes to Khalid's home to get intimate. While at Khalid's one day, Fatima discovers Khalid's art book but Khalid persuades her not to look at it.
* Khalid and his friend Omar bring Fatima to a protest they are planning. At this point, Fatima does not realize Khalid is a terrorist. At the protest, police swarm the group and violently arrest whoever they can, including Omar.
* Fatima wakes up one morning at Khalid's home and discovers he is not in the bed beside her. While looking for him, she goes through his art book and unmasks his plans to kill her father to avenge his brother.
* Fatima runs to the square by the tea house where her father goes every morning and spots Khalid. She begs him not to kill her father, but Khalid has already taken the pin off his trigger. Terrorists in a nearby car watching Khalid realize he's not going to go through with the bombing, so they fire at him.
* The first shot misses Khalid and instead hits a waiter at the teahouse Fawal is eating at. Fawal and his bodyguards run away from the square. The terrorists shoot again and hit Khalid. When he dies, his limp fingers trigger the bomb. He and Fatima are both killed, as are 17 others including Douglas Freeman's partner Dixon. Meanwhile, Fawal has already made it to safety and is not harmed.
* The Americans believe Rashid Salimi and Anwar have something to do with the bomb, so they divert Anwar to the Middle East where he is tortured by Fawal and Douglas Freeman. Meanwhile, Isabella and Alan try to get Anwar released.
* After six days of torturing Anwar, Fawal discovers from his wife and sister that Fatima has been missing since the bomb blast. He believs she has run off with Khalid so get his bodyguards to track him down.
* After torturing Omar, Fawal's bodyguards find out where Khalid lives. Fawal burns into Khalid's house but only finds Khalid's grandmother, grieving her youngest grandson's death. Fawal then realizes Fatima hasn't run away but is dead, and that she died trying to save him.
* Freeman manages to get Anwar released and he is reunited in America with his wife, son, and newborn.

~::~::~
The midget I'm dating could be my daughter! ~Denny Crane

[–] lemner 14 years ago

In my opinion, it wasn't the uncle calling Anwar, but some one mis-dialing another number. That person may have been a terrorist, or someone using a phone given away or sold by a terrorist. Anwar never talked to that person and couldn't return calls because the number was blocked.

The police didn't seem to know Khalid's last name or who his brother was for about a week. Fawal had not known about the bother's death, let alone ordered it. It sounded like he was accidentally tortured to death.

Khalid may or may not have been stalking Fatima. He may have met her in a class and started to romance her without knowing the connection. It was obvious he genuinely cared for her, and it seemed he was reluctant to sign up as a suicide bomber in spite of his brother's death.

Fatima moved in with her aunt because she was going to be forced to marry someone she didn't care for, and she did care about Khalid.

Khalid didn't decide to do the suicide bombing until after Omar was arrested while they were preparing for a peaceful demonstration. They knew he would be tortured for information and they would all be at risk.

Semper Contendere Propter Amoram et Formam

[–] Terrapin2212 12 years ago

I do wonder couldn't the CIA have gone back and hacked into the cell phone company and heard the conversations with that number?

[–] NeitherHearNorTheir 13 years ago

Good job breaking down the time line, chipandluna.

I thought the film was good, but I'm a sucker for a gimmick, so the messing-with-the-timeline thing really worked for me. It didn't necessarily make the film better, but it certainly made it more memorable for me.

[–] svetiev_b 12 years ago

Thanks chipandluna.

You should put this in the FAQ section.

I was wondering about this too. The only thing that messed up my view was that I didn't watch from the beginning and before the end when we are shown the death of Dixon I thought that it is Douglas and Ibrahimi in the car escaping and that got me all mixed up.

[–] civ-e 11 years ago

"Fawal then realizes Fatima hasn't run away but is dead, and that she died trying to save him" -- how did Fawal ascertain that the reason his daughter died was to try to save him?

[–] generaltsobeef 11 years ago

Possibly because he viewed the tourist tape that was on the news earlier in the movie where he sees the woman try to stop the bomber (but at the time didn't know it was his daughter).

I still think it's a stretch, but I guess it could be possible he put two and two together.

[–] civ-e 11 years ago

that seems like most likely explanation, thanks!