'Traitor' worthy of genre
Daring portrayals
By Phil Villarreal
Pvillarreal@azstarnet.com
Tucson, Arizona | Published: 08.28.2008
A lean, taut espionage thriller that dares to treat Muslim terrorists as real people rather than faceless drones, "Traitor" never betrays its core.
Don Cheadle stars as Samir, a devout Muslim who sells explosives to terrorist groups. At a meeting in Yemen, police capture him and let American agents Clayton (Guy Pearce) and Archer (Neal McDonough) grill him. Samir refuses to rat out his co-conspirators, choosing to rot in prison indefinitely.
Baffled by Samir's resolve, Clayton does some research and learns that Samir was an American operative who crossed over to the other side when he was deployed. Clayton underestimates Samir's devoutness, however. He abhors fundamentalist violence and sees it as his religious duty to undermine those who corrupt Islam.
Samir is actually a saboteur, taking secret orders from an American intelligence contractor (Jeff Daniels). He's a pretend terrorist on Uncle Sam's payroll.
With the help of the well-connected jihadist inmate Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui), Samir escapes from prison and starts planning and executing bombings. The goal is to earn enough clout to work his way into the upper echelons and derail massive-scale attacks.
Ever conflicted, Samir tries to reconcile his religion with his duty, double-dealing with both sides, which seek to abuse him for his skill and fortitude. And the heat only ratchets higher, with Clayton and Archer searching for him and tracing him to the attacks, identifying Samir as a high-profile public enemy.
Other than Samir, most of the characters are oversimplified placeholders with little depth, but Cheadle gives you someone to latch onto and care for. You also sort of despise him, because he may well be doing more harm than good. Along with Samir, you wonder if it's worth executing a plan that kills a few in order to get into position to derail a larger plot, especially if Samir originates that larger plot.
Along with "Syriana" and "The Kingdom," "Traitor" is a sign of a recently evolving genre — the morally conflicted War on Terror film, replacing the more cut-and-dried Cold War thrillers such as "The Hunt for Red October" and "WarGames."
Battles without uniforms, negotiations and battle lines will be the subjects of new war films. "Traitor" is a reflection of its uncertain times.
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