As a thriller, Traitor excels and feels especially relevant, considering the subject matter.
Traitor (2008)
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:157
Fresh:95
Rotten:62
Average Rating:6.1/10
Consensus: Despite another reliable performance from Don Cheadle, Traitor suffers from too many cliches and an unfocused narrative.
Rated: PG-13 [See Full Rating] for intense violent sequences, thematic material and brief language.
Runtime: 1 hr 54 mins
Genre: Action/Adventure
Theatrical Release:Aug 29, 2008 Wide
Box Office: $23,501,463
Synopsis: TRAITOR is writer/director Jeffrey Nachmanoff's powerful rumination on post-9/11 foreign affairs wrapped up into a taut contemporary spy thriller. Balancing the film's sometimes conflicted... TRAITOR is writer/director Jeffrey Nachmanoff's powerful rumination on post-9/11 foreign affairs wrapped up into a taut contemporary spy thriller. Balancing the film's sometimes conflicted ideological heft is Don Cheadle, who turns in a smartly even-keeled performance as Samir Horn, a Sudanese-born, Chicago-raised former U.S. Army Special Forces operative. The action begins with a jarring prologue set in Sudan in 1978, where the young Samir witnesses the murder of his father by car bombing. Jumping swiftly to present day Yemen, Samir, in a dramatically ironic twist, is revealed as a mercenary selling explosives to Muslim extremists. But what is never completely clear throughout TRAITOR's numerous plot-twists is just where Horn's allegiances truly lie: is he an American spy infiltrating a Jihadist plot or a devout Muslim who has traded his sympathies with the West? When an arms sale runs afoul, Samir is jailed in a Yemeni prison where he befriends Omar (Said Taghmaoui), a ringleader of a terrorist organization that is being watched by the F.B.I. A bold prison break is hatched and the pair begins collaborating on a series of bombings throughout Europe. As Samir becomes embroiled in ever-escalating terror plots, it becomes clear that he is duplicitously playing both sides at growing danger to himself and the lives of innocent people. Cut with a breathless, war reportage-styled pace, TRAITOR is an action-packed, suspense-filled thriller whose seemingly equivocal ideological veneer can be summed up as: "In war, there are no winners." [More]
Starring: Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Said Taghmaoui, Neal McDonough
Starring: Don Cheadle, Guy Pearce, Said Taghmaoui, Neal McDonough, Alyy Khan, Jeff Daniels
Director: Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Director: Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Screenwriter: Jeffrey Nachmanoff
Producer: David Hoberman, Todd Lieberman, Don Cheadle, Jeffrey Silver
Composer: Mark Kilian
Studio: Overture Films
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Reviews for Traitor
The action scenes will grab you, but there's an actual story here, too.
Much harder to see coming is the film’s denouement, but that’s only because of its extreme silliness.
As the eponymous terrorist, Cheadle makes a big impact without too much noise.
Traitor is undeniably an intelligent, watchable thriller that wisely steers clear of racial stereotyping, yet manages to fall short of delivering a wholly satisfying cerebral or visceral experience.
The result is an absorbing, old-fashioned drama without the gung-ho rhetoric you might have expected.
A globe-trotting conspiracy thriller that is a little too complicated for its own good.
Traitor has its faults. It’s overlong, contrived in parts and ultimately resorts to some predictable tactics. The irresistible question is whether the US would be making films like this if 9/11 hadn’t happened.
Strong turns from Cheadle and Pearce elevate an ambitious suspenser with a keen eye for the duplicities that propel the War On Terror. The risible ending, alas, is pure wish-fulfillment hokum, while the solitary female character is barely a cipher.
More carefully measured than many of its American contemporaries, Traitor doesn’t match the heights of Syriana, but sits comfortably above, say, The Kingdom for mapping out the complexities of its issues .
Once the pieces fall into place, it loses momentum, meandering towards a contrived climax in which all ambiguity is swept aside and the forces of righteous democracy prove reassuringly triumphant.
The moral maze is not quite as murky as it should be, a suspicion that we may have misjudged the hero whisks the film back into the realms of fiction, and detracts from the issues it raises.
Some well-meant but fantastically flaccid and perfunctory gestures of friendship towards the Muslim world are the foundation of this empty thriller.
The mounting fear and isolation of the Cheadle character puts us in an interesting place: the war on terror is reconfigured as a tussle of the soul.
Globetrotting conspiracy thriller which moves at a fair old pace, blending action with a complex storyline.
Tense, intelligent and quite moving, it's a meaty thriller filled with characters painted in refreshingly complex shades of grey.
It was the fine performances from Cheadle and Pearce which really grabbed his attention.
Latest News for Traitor
January 04, 2009:
This double or maybe even triple agent dude decidedly favors a kind of 'this hurts me more than it hurts you' scorched earth policy, a mentality not exactly conducive to cozy plot resolutions. ![]()
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January 03, 2009:
This double or maybe even triple agent dude decidedly favors a kind of 'this hurts me more than it hurts you' scorched earth policy, a mentality not exactly conducive to cozy plot resolutions. ![]()
More...
December 30, 2008:
This double or maybe even triple agent dude decidedly favors a kind of 'this hurts me more than it hurts you' scorched earth policy, a mentality not exactly conducive to cozy plot resolutions. ![]()
More...
December 18, 2008:
Five Favorite Films with Don Cheadle
In last August's Traitor, Don Cheadle took on the challenge of tempering a Bourne-like action hero with the moral ambiguity of real world concerns: namely, terrorism and the... More...
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