Duplicity can indeed be a very dangerous thing. Especially in the
volatile, unpredictable world of extreme terrorism. And when nothing
is as it seems in a movie (Vantage Point is a fine example), your
senses pulsate, your stomach grinds and that nice soft cushioned
theater seat becomes increasingly uncomfortable.
First time director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who co-wrote one of my
favorite movies, The Day After Tomorrow does this to you exploring
the chaos and deception created by both sides of the war on terror
still affected by 911 in his humorless debut film, Traitor.
Ocean's alum Don Cheadle plays Sudanese born Samir Horn who at the
tender young age of ten in 1978, watches as his father steps into a
car outside their house- the car explodes right after he closes the
door. Young Samir (Yassine Mamadou) seems indifferent, but the
tragedy's effect on him is unmistakable.
Naturally we jump cut to
the present day and we see Samir driving to an appointment at a safe
house in Yemen. He meets with an extremist named Omar telling him
that the head terrorist Ahmed asked him to come. It's no surprise
that this little rendezvous is interrupted by a barrage of gunfire
from Yemeni soldiers attacking the safe house. Samir is imprisoned ,
then immediately interrogated by two FBI agents; Clayton (Guy
Pearce) the ostensibly "good'" cop and Archer (Neil McDonough) the
"bad" cop who gets a little rough with Samir when he refuses to
reveal any info on his "compadres".
The idea for this story came from, much to my
surprise and others, none other than Steve Martin. Yes, I mean
Saturday Night Live, wild and crazy guy Steve Martin. Seems he
had been working on this "what if" scenario while working on
Bringing Down the House with producer David Hoberman back n 1985
(Martin does have an exec producer credit for Traitor) . When
Nachmanoff and Cheadle got hold of it they modified it using
Martin's original concept.
Traitor's run, much to the credit of
Nachmanoff's adaptation is taut with the usual amount of drama,
action and terrorist activities. It actually could have been a full
2 hours instead of 110 minutes. Talk about terrorism being global,
the script covers plenty of territory taking you to maybe one, too
many places. Yemen, Madrid, Marseilles, Washington, Chicago, Mexico
and Canada. Nachmanoff warns those of us who have relaxed since 911,
that these people are everywhere. And for his first feature film,
he's essentially straightforward, sporting a twist that's anything
except confusing.
Any passionate moviegoer who has seen him knows that Don Cheadle
is a major talent. From his supporting roles in the Ocean's films,
the multi storied, multi territorial film Crash, to his turns as
real life characters Paul Rusesabagina in Hotel Rwanda and
Washington d. j. Petey Greene in Talk to Me, Cheadle takes any role
he's given and runs with it. GQ magazine named him as one of the top
ten actors of our generation. I just hope he doesn't have to wait
until he's Morgan Freeman's age before The Academy of Motion Picture
Arts and Sciences finally bestows upon him, a well deserved Oscar
for best actor.
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