Traitor

Review By: Michael Dance
MichaelDance@TheCinemaSource.com

Traitor is something I've been waiting for: a film that aims to examine the religion of Islam in order to separate the true believers from those who have hijacked the religion and used it for justification of terrorism. That it succeeds in doing this by centering on a Muslim character who is deeply embroiled in a terrorist group may sound like a contradiction, and the chief interesting notion of the film is that we spend most of the time unsure of his true motives -- but fairly certain that he doesn't know, either.

Unfortunately, judging from the terrible track record of political films over the past year, nobody besides me was waiting for a movie like that. So you might be happy to know that above any other categorization, Traitor is simply a taut thriller, and a successful one at that.

The reliably good Don Cheadle plays Samir Horn. Born in Sudan, he watched his father die in a car bomb as a child, later moved to the U.S. (Cheadle speaks with his real American accent) and became a Special Ops officer. However, according to his old CIA contact (Jeff Daniels), he's gone silent for years, and is possibly working in the Middle East as an opportunist arms dealer.

That's where Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) first catches up with him. Samir's caught when a deal gets raided, is offered freedom by Clayton in exchange for information about his customers, refuses, and is left to rot in a Yemen jail, where he befriends Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui of Vantage Point and The Kite Runner), a radical Muslim. But they escape, and when the FBI catches wind of a terrorist group operating in Europe and potentially planning an attack on U.S. soil, Samir becomes Clayton's best suspect.

That's all setup. The film settles into shifting between Samir and Clayton's perspectives, with Omar introducing Samir to his terrorist contacts and Clayton tracking Samir with his partner Max Archer (Neal McDonough).

It's as Samir integrates himself with Omar's terror group that we see flashes of the personality he tries to hide. There's an intriguing scene in which Samir meets a clean-shaven, well-dressed terrorist who explains that the Qur'an encourages Muslims to integrate themselves among their enemies to hide better. Samir interrupts him, saying he's misrepresenting the Qur'an.

It's a film that thrives in its scenes of quiet discussion -- which also carry over to Clayton's debates with Archer. But like I said, it's first and foremost an exciting thriller that should get even the least politically aware people on the edge of their seats.

Movie Grade: B+

Synopsis:

A rogue special operative working with a terrorist group becomes the target of the FBI.