Sitting on the fence is never a good thing when it comes to films. However, after spending almost two hours watching this film, Traitor ends up leaving its audience on the fence.The movie adds itself to the growing list of post-9/11 movies that speak to terrorism, politics, patriotism and religion, but falters in the last 30 minutes, when all the twists are revealed and the characters are bringing their respective arcs to bear.
Traitor stars the very reliable Don Cheadle, of the critically acclaimed Hotel Rwanda and Crash, and the lesser known but enjoyable Guy Pearce. The film begins with Samir Horn (Cheadle) hawking bombs and munitions to terrorist types in Yemen, where he is arrested and imprisoned, then charged with terrorism. It turns out Horn was born in the United States, trained by the U.S. army, but has stayed behind in the Middle East with questions surrounding whether he has gone over to the terrorists he was trained to kill. Pearce’s straight-arrow FBI agent Roy Clayton enters the story seeking Horn’s help with finding the terrorists behind a number of different bombings of American targets throughout the world. Horn chooses to stay in prison rather than help the FBI, all of this happening within the first 15 minutes of the film, setting the premise for a cat and mouse game between Horn and Clayton. Throughout the film, there is always overwhelming evidence that Horn has indeed crossed the line that separates the supposed good guys from the bad guys, becoming an extremist terrorist himself. The film is strongest here because the lines between terrorism and war are blurred. In the one corner you have the United States, bombing from afar in order to ensure the survival of the western ideal. In the other corner you have the “terrorist” organizations, who also believe they are fighting for the survival of their countries using guerrilla tactics to expel the invaders.
Using examples such as the American’s tactics during the revolution of the 18th century, screenwriter and director Jeffrey Nachmanoff does effectively blur the line to some extent. However, in the final 30 minutes, it seems that Nachmanoff lost his nerve and needed to ensure that the film, despite its questioning, still views terrorism as unethical, leaving no questions as to the morality of it or the tactics used by those fighting the jihad against the United States. The moral supremacy of America prevails, at least in the movie version of the world. Had Traitor continued down the path of questioning, it might have ended up being a little more enjoyable and thought provoking. Instead, it becomes a repeat of other relatively good films surrounding terrorism over the last decade.