| | | The Truth is Complicated.
Features: DVD
A rouge former us special forces operative i aiding terrorists to carry out acts against the west however its unclear where the mans loyalties lie.
"Don Cheadle, wiry and wired, delivers an electrifying performance in Traitor." Carrie Rickey, Philadelphia Inquirer
"Traitor is scary good." Joe Neumaier, New York Daily News
"...a genuinely gripping tale about international terrorism that hopscotches across three continents." Kirk Honeycutt, The Hollywood Reporter
"A pure thriller...a tangled web of conspiracy and intrigue." Roger Ebert, Chicago Sun-Times
"This year's Bourne Ultimatum." Steve Oldfield, FOX-TV
Editor's Note
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."
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| Entertainment Reviews
 | Traitor - DVD Review By: Bill Gibron - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 12/5/2008 4:33 PM | |
Can a thriller really be a thriller without thrills? Better yet, can an international spy story really succeed by purposefully getting us to sympathize with the enemy? That's the double edged sword being wielded by Jeffrey Nachmanoff with his new film Traitor. Even the title offers yet another bit of bifurcation -- on the one hand we have a deeply religious man (Don Cheadle) working with terrorists to blow up Americans. On the other, we see how he uses his faith as a means of undermining the group's most violent objectives. Of course, this doesn't make the tale interesting or exciting. Sometimes, just being different doesn't save you from being dull....read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Video Treasures |
| Release Date: 12/19/2008 |
| Running Time: 114 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2008 | | Catalog ID: 80012 | | UPC: 00013138001290 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English | | Available Subtitles: Spanish | | Video: Color |
| Cast & Crew | Neal McDonough | | Don Cheadle | | Said Taghmaoui | | Alyy Khan | | Jeff Daniels | | Guy Pearce | | J. Michael Muro - Director of Photography | | Laurence Bennett - Production Designer | | Steve Martin - Executive Producer | | Kay Liberman - Executive Producer | | Billy Fox - Editor | | Todd Lieberman - Producer | | Jeffrey Silver - Producer | | Jeffrey Nachmanoff - Screenwriter | | David Hoberman - Producer | | Don Cheadle - Producer | | Mark Kilian - Composer | | Arlene Gibbs - Executive Producer | | Ashok Amritraj - Executive Producer | | Jeffrey Nachmanoff - Director |
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| | Professional Reviews | Los Angeles Times
"Don Cheadle reaffirms his excellence in a good, terrorism-themed thriller that also features guy Pearce and Jeff Daniels....It tells a good, snakelike story, slithering in some unpredictable directions." 08/29/2008New York Times
"[S]omber, absorbing....[TRAITOR] manages an impressive feat of economy....[With an] unassuming style and tightly focused story..." 08/29/2008 Reel.com 6 of 10
Can a thriller really be a thriller without thrills? Better yet, can an international spy story really succeed by purposefully getting us to sympathize with the enemy? That's the double edged sword being wielded by Jeffrey Nachmanoff with his new film Traitor. Even the title offers yet another bit of bifurcation. On the one hand, we have a deeply religious man (Don Cheadle) working with terrorists to blow up Americans. On the other, we see how he uses his faith as a means of undermining the group's most violent objectives. Of course, this doesn't make the tale interesting or exciting. Just being different doesn't save you from being dull...As much as it wants to position itself as a "thinking man's action film," Traitor actually betrays all signs of cleverness. In fact, it frequently over-rationalizes its ideas, leaving the audience limp from lack of excitement. We know something is up with Cheadle's Samir the moment we see him, and every action he then takes seems calculated and controlled by influences outside our narrative purview. Indeed, as it passes along perfunctorily, peeling away the obvious layers from its proposed puzzle box plot, we keep waiting for the moment when the storyline's other shoe drops. Sadly, when it does, we've already figured out the twist...Most intelligent people understand that there is a clear contradiction between dogma and the interpreted right to destroy. By taking both sides seriously, Traitor might be fair, but it's far from involving. - Bill Gibron
ReelViews 8 of 10
Traitor is an uncommonly intelligent espionage thriller that explores the moral and ethical dilemmas faced by agents who go deep undercover in the service of their country. For movies that revolve around terrorist organizations and acts, there are typically two approaches: a gung-ho, "John Wayne" style and a story that seeks to humanize the terrorists. Traitor takes a different, less straightforward trajectory that exhibits the complex motivations of the terrorists as well as those who oppose them without resorting to caricatures on either side. The film's villains are not cookie-cutter bad guys and the FBI agents are neither bumbling nor infallible. Caught in the middle of everything is a man trying to save innocent lives but whose actions end up taking them as well...The actors were chosen for their abilities to portray characters who inhabit areas of gray. Not since Hotel Rwanda has Don Cheadle been this forceful. Samir is trapped in an impossible situation, yet we can't help but hope he'll find some way to thread the needle. Guy Pearce makes Clayton an admirable individual with a quick mind. As Archer, Neal McDonough steps away from his usual psycho persona to play "bad cop" to Clayton's "good cop"...As a thriller for adults who don't require manic chases, frenetic shoot-outs, and ten cuts per second, Traitor is smart, effective, and at times suspenseful. It's one of a very few terrorist-themed movies that presents its situation without resorting to exploitation or oversimplification. - James Berardinelli
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