The Story
Don Cheadle stars as Samir Horn, a Sudanese man who as a child watched his father die in a car bomb attack in front of his house. Raised in the United States, Samir is a devout Muslim who excelled in the military before leaving that life behind to sell explosives to pretty much any organization that has the money to buy them, including Middle Eastern terrorists.
It's during one transaction with a group of extremists that Samir's grabbed by the Yemen police working in conjunction with the FBI and tossed in jail. After earning the trust of Omar (Said Taghmaoui) , one of the men involved in the aborted sale, by standing up against jailhouse bullies, Samir escapes from the prison and is taken under Omar's wing and introduced to one of the most powerful terrorists operating out of the Middle East. Made a member of a terrorist operation targeting Westerners and Western interests, Samir's an integral player in a mission to carry out attacks in England and on American soil.
The always terrific Don Cheadle does a decent job playing a former police officer who may be the 'traitor' referred to in the film's title. Selling bomb-making material and following along with men who espouse killing innocents in the name of their god, Cheadle's Samir should be a hard case that's difficult to embrace, but Cheadle plays him a little too sympathetically. Cheadle's given him a quiet demeanor when he needs to be abrasive. Samir needs to put off the audience for the whole "whose side is he on?" plot to work. We shouldn't root for this guy when we don't know why he's aiding murderers, but Cheadle makes us do so.
As FBI agents hunting down a big fish in the terrorist pond, Guy Pearce and Neal McDonough are the two most intriguing characters in the whole film. Their characters have more depth to them, their motivations are clear, and these two serious law enforcement men actually have personalities. Unfortunately their screen time is too limited.
The Bottom Line
If you've seen one political thriller in your life, then you can pretty much guess going in how things are going to turn out. However, that said, there are a couple of original twists that save Traitor from melting into the standard terrorism movie pot. One pivotal scene toward the climax of the film even had the preview audience clapping because it was so unexpected. Although I'm willing to bet that in retrospect those same audience members are ashamed to have applauded such a violent scene.
Traitor had the potential to be a smart political thriller, but lost its way when Nachmanoff tried to work too much into the story. Flitting from hot button topic to hot button topic, Traitor leaves a lot of strings untied on its way to an unsatisfying, Hollywood-ish ending.
GRADE: C
Traitor was directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff and is rated PG-13 for intense violent sequences, thematic material and brief language.
Theatrical Release Date: August 27, 2008
