"Don’t be fooled. Traitor is not this year’s Bourne Ultimatum, but it’s a great political thriller. The Truth Is Complicated."
I've actually seen a trailer hype this movie up with a tag line saying "It is this year's Bourne Ultimatum". Well, don't buy into that because its nothing of the sort. Doesn't even come close. The movie, however, is still worth a watch as Don Cheadle gives a performance that is absolutely amazing portraying a man fighting with his conscience.
Because of the false sense that the trailers portray, many viewers walk into this movie expecting great fight scenes, car chases, shoot outs, explosions, and action galore. Well, like I said, its NOT Bourne Ultimatum. It's a political thriller that also dwells on a topic that many people have pretty much taken a side on already. This movie attempts to ask you to put your view aside and watch with an open mind the tale of Jihad from the Western and Muslim perspectives. Hoping that the audience will realize that its not all black and white, but very gray. More on this topic a little later.
The movie begins by introducing us to Cheadle's character Samir Horn, who as a Muslim child witnesses a relative die in a car bomb explosion in Sudan where he was born. Next we encounter him as an adult about to make a deal to sell explosives in Yemen to a terrorist friend. But first he has to go through a suspicious middleman named Omar. Suddenly the police raid the home and Omar and Horn are arrested for terrorism and placed in a Yemen prison. There we find that Samir is a former U.S. Special Operations officer who happens to have Muslim faith and believes strongly in the Koran, the Muslim bible. He befriends Omar (played by Said Taghmaoui) and the two escape the prison in a rare action scene. Soon after, Omar introduces Samir to Fareed (Aly Khan) the leader of an extreme Muslim faction who is hell bent in making the United States pay for its Western beliefs. Here we find what the extremists are planning. They would like Samir to coordinate a plan to simultaneously bomb 50 buses in the United States. We also find that the extremists have already planted sleepers within our country that are ready to sacrifice themselves for their cause. Meanwhile, FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) heads up the investigation into the dangerous international conspiracy and all clues seem to lead back to Samir. The task force links Samir to the prison break in Yemen, a bombing in Nice and a raid in London. Then a tangle of contradictory evidence emerges, forcing Clayton to question whether Samir is an actual terrorist - or something far more complicated. Clayton tracks Samir across the world with the hope of capturing him and finding out the truth.
Don Cheadle provides us with an excellent protrayal of Samir who is in agony of having to do things he really doesn't believe in. In the movie he constantly tells his extremist partners what the Koran really states and how sometimes he feels that they take its words out of context to benefit them. And personally, I totally agree that's exactly what Muslim terrorists do... take the Koran out of context to justify their murderous ways. Guy Pearce delivers a good performance as well as the straight edge FBI agent chasing after Cheadle's character. Neal McDonough , who has played plenty of villains in other movies, plays Guy Pearce's FBI partner. Actually, his character lends nothing to the movie and could have easily been cut out on the editing floor as could Archie Panjabi's character of Chandra Dawkin. Jeff Daniels also appears in the movie as Samir's handler, but his character has screen time that totals an entire five minutes. That's right... five minutes. Any unknown actor could of played the role. Daniels is better than this and I don't understand why he would take the part. Finally, we have Said Taghmaoui, who plays Samir's terrorist partner Omar. After one of the better villainous performances of the year in Vantage Point, Taghmaoui delivers another performance that makes you believe he was born to play these roles. He is a much better actor than that however, as he proved in The Kite Runner and Hidalgo.
Director, Jeff Nachmanoff clearly was a little out of practice in the director's chair. He's only directed two other movies (The Big Gig in 1993 and Hollywood Palms in 2001) besides this thriller. Without the practice, Nachmanoff shows he's a little off in the pacing of the movie and actually drags a bit at times. His delivery of the plot twist at the end was nice, however, and few will see it coming. A guy a couple of seats to my right actually fell asleep for five minutes during one of the boring scenes. Not good.
What's really interesting (and disturbing) is the idea of sleeper cells already here in this country waiting for a signal to strike. The very thought of that is scary... and probably a reality. A provocative idea is that the leaders of these extremists are not simply Muslims, but businessmen who simply have turned their strong beliefs of the Koran into flat out hatred toward the U.S. And seeing Cheadle's character, Samir, continuously refuse to make that shift is uplifting. Seeing him simply know what is black and what is white in a world of gray gives the audience hope that perhaps there ARE people out there that can tell the difference. Samir's interpretation of the Koran and the Islam religion places his relationship to his god above any earthly goals.
This movie is simply a thinking man's movie. The shootouts, the car chases, the explosions, all come around very rarely. So if you're looking for an international spy thriller that has an abundance of action, this is not the movie for you. But, if you're ready for a film that will exercise your mind, your religious beliefs, and your political stance... then check this one out. The Traitor may be worth at least one looksee.
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