Movie review: ‘Traitor’ a thinking man’s thriller
Posted by Dennis Sellers 
Sep 3, 2008 at 5:56am
Based on a story idea by Steve Martin (yes, that Steve Martin) Traitor is a relatively thrilling bit of escapism with a brain. Think of it as Bourne lite.
Here’s the film summary: When straight arrow FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) heads up the investigation into a dangerous international conspiracy, all clues seem to lead back to former U.S. Special Operations officer, Samir Horn (Don Cheadle). A mysterious figure with a web of connections to terrorist organization, Horn has a knack for emerging on the scene just as a major operation goes down. The inter-agency task force looking into the case meets with Carter (Jeff Daniels), a veteran CIA contractor who seemingly has his own agenda and Max Archer (Neal McDonough), a fellow FBI agent. The task force links Horn to a prison break in Yemen, a bombing in Nice and a raid in London, but a tangle of contradictory evidence emerges, forcing Clayton to question whether his quarry is a disaffected former military operative or something far more complicated. Obsessed with discovering the truth, Clayton tracks Horn across the globe as the elusive ex-soldier burrows deeper and deeper into a world of shadow and intrigue.
Co-writer and director Jeffrey Nachmanoff directs the action sequences with flair and avoids the herky-jerky camera tricks of films like The Kingdom. However, it’s the performances that really lift Traitor above the mundane. All the performances are nuanced and the characters don’t fall into the easy stereotypes they could be.
Ultimately, the film is a little simplistic and tries too hard to cover all the idealogies involved. It would have been better, and more realistic, if the filmmakers had taken a stand. And Traitor gets a little preposterous in the last stretch when Samir crosses the US border.
Despite its flaws, Traitor is a passable thinking man’s thriller. And certainly the best new film to hit the screen in the past week.
Traitor is rated PG-13 for intense violent sequences, thematic material and brief language. Running time: 114 minutes. Macsimum rating: 7 out of 10. You can check out the film’s trailer on the QuickTime movie trailer site.“Macsimum News” is a proud supporter of Planet Gumbo, which feeds the hungry. We urge you to help them in their efforts.
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Dennis Sellers
Dennis has been a newspaper editor/reporter (seven years) and teacher (seven years). He has over 4,000 magazine, newspaper and online articles to his credit. He has also covered the Mac and tech industries for over a decade for such online publications as MacCentral, MacMinute and now MacsimumNews.
