Traitor

Written by: Jeffrey Nachmanoff, Steve Martin
Directed by: Jeffrey Nachmanoff


One man’s freedom fighter is another man’s terrorist, right? I kept thinking that the entire time watching Traitor.

Meet Samir Horn (Don Cheadle), devout Muslim, skilled chess player. As a boy in Sudan, he watches his father killed in a car bombing. Fast forward to present day. He is now a skilled explosives guy who trades with people all over the country. We meet him in Yemen selling devices to another Muslim, Omar (Said Taghmoui). They sit, drink tea, talk shop, but before anything can really be done the cops bust in and arrest the whole lot for terrorism.

The U.S. feds, lead by Agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) stop by to see if they can get Samir to talk in exchange for a free ride back to the states (he grew up in Chicago, after the incident with his dad). Samir declines their offer and decides to sit tight in jail. Of course Omar assumes Samir is the traitor that sold them out and got them locked up in the first place. But once he witnesses Samir get the snot kicked out of him for giving a fellow prisoner some food, Omar thinks Samir might be worth getting to know.

They learn that they share a love of chess, have spent years in English schools, and are both devout in their faith. The two become close and Omar lets Samir in on their mission to knock out a bunch of Americans. Let them know they don’t really run stuff. And Samir is in on it. The clan breaks out of jail and goes to France to set up shop.

Meanwhile Agent Clayton is investigating one of the attacks on Americans. See, the terrorist cells figured that it would be a good idea to get Americans everywhere. We travel a lot. Bunch of people in Spain? Blammo. So Clayton is on the hunt trying to stop any further attacks, while Samir is on the run trying to carry out the plans of some of his Muslim brothers. See where that’s headed?

Luckily this is not a hard to follow movie. A lot of times when there is international terrorism involved the story becomes convoluted. It’s not hard to figure out who’s out to get who. I can’t even call anyone the “bad guy” because each side explains why they believe what they believe and what they are fighting for and why it’s right to them. I like that about this movie. They also try and vary from the typical face of the Muslim terrorist. There were also a couple turns that had me anticipating what was going to happen next cause I just couldn’t figure it out.

And as usual I loved Don Cheadle. I’m not saying its an Oscar worthy performance, but it does seem like he was really into the character. He didn’t just sound like any ol’ body trying to pray in Arabic. Guy Pearce was also pretty good. At first I was kinda confused as to why he had to have a Southern accent, but he makes a comment about his daddy being a Baptist preacher putting out KKK fires on people’s lawns, so there you have it. Said Taghmoui was pretty good as one of the terrorist guys, even though I knew him as the terrorist guy from Vantage Point.

I wish they were giving this movie more publicity. Since the summer blockbusters are over we can ease into the dramas of the fall. Woo hoo! (yes I get excited about every movie season).

Definitely go check out Traitor though.