Traitor (film)

Traitor is a 2008 American spy thriller film, based on an idea by Steve Martin who is also an executive producer. It is written and directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff, the film stars Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce in the lead roles.

Plot

Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) is an Arabic-speaking Sudanese-American and devout Muslim. His Sudanese father was killed by a car bomb when he was a child. As an adult, Horn is first seen operating as an arms dealer. While negotiating a deal with Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui) in Yemen he is arrested and thrown into a Yemeni jail. Later, Samir and Omar become friends and when Omar's people arrange an escape, he takes Samir with them.

Joining the Islamic Brotherhood, Samir uses the skills he learned as a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant with the U.S. Army Special Forces to bomb the U.S. consulate in Nice, France. The group then devises a plot to place suicide bombers on 50 buses in the U.S. during Thanksgiving. Meanwhile, in London, the Islamic Brotherhood finds out Fareed is being targeted by the FBI and he escapes by a source in the FBI headquarters. It is revealed that Samir is working under deep cover for an intelligence contractor, Carter (Jeff Daniels), with the United States government against terrorism. The FBI agents pursuing him don't know this, and Carter is killed by Omar.

Meanwhile, FBI Special Agent Roy Clayton (Pearce) pursues Samir through numerous countries, resulting in their final confrontation in Halifax, Nova Scotia, Canada. While on board a cargo ship to Marseille, France, Samir learns the identity of Nathir and kills Nathir, Fareed, and when Omar is about to kill him, he tells that he switched the bombers' emails and he placed them all on the same bus so all of them died without victims (except for the driver of the one bus). Canadian police, with the FBI, breaks in and kills Omar and injures Samir.

Later, under an 'L' bridge in Chicago, Samir tells Agent Clayton he feels guilty for killing innocent people. Samir tells Clayton that the Qur'an says that to kill an innocent person is to kill all mankind. Clayton responds by noting that the Qur'an also says that by saving an innocent person, he has saved all mankind, and tells Samir he is a hero.

Cast

• Don Cheadle as Samir Horn
• Guy Pearce as Agent Roy Clayton
• Saïd Taghmaoui as Omar
• Neal McDonough as Max Archer
• Jeff Daniels as Carter
• Archie Panjabi as Chandra Dawkin
• Mozhan Marnò as Leyla
• Lorena Gale as Dierdre Horn
• Alyy Khan as Fareed

Production

The project had been in development since 2002, and was originally set to be produced by Walt Disney Pictures (through Touchstone Pictures), but was dropped owing to management change. It was picked up by Overture Films. Principal photography started in early September, 2007, in Toronto, Marseille and Marrakesh.

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes reported that 63% of critics gave positive reviews based on 166 reviews, with the summary, "Despite another reliable performance from Don Cheadle, Traitor suffers from too many cliches and an unfocused narrative." Another review aggregator, Metacritic, gave the film a 60/100 approval rating based on 29 reviews.

Cheadle's performance was praised. Roger Ebert of the Chicago Sun-Times gave the film three stars out of four and wrote in his review, "The movie proceeds quickly, seems to know its subject matter, is fascinating in its portrait of the inner politics and structure of the terrorist group, and comes uncomfortably close to reality. But what holds it together is the Cheadle character."

Box office

The film opened #5 with $7 million on its opening weekend. As of November 23, the film has grossed $23.5 million in Canada and the United States and $2.2 million in other markets, including $800,000 in Australia, for a total $27.6 million worldwide.

Related films

Anwar, a 2010 Malayalam Indian film was an uncredited remake of Traitor.

References

External links

• Official website
• Traitor at the Internet Movie Database
• Traitor at Box Office Mojo
• Traitor at AllMovie
• Traitor at the Internet Movie Firearms Database