Film

'Traitor': Complicated and Brilliant

By Marcos Bernal-Salas

Wednesday, August 27, 2008

It’s rare that one comes across a very surprising film; especially if such film opens at the very end of the summer. That’s the case with ‘Traitor’, starring Academy Award nominee Don Cheadle (‘Crash’ and ‘Hotel Rwanda’) in an action thriller that not only serves up on the popular genre but also delivers a captivating story.

In ‘Traitor’, an elite FBI agent – played brilliantly by Guy Pearce – travels three continents in the search of a rogue soldier (Cheadle) whose connections can shed light onto the largest terrorist network and leading operators. That in itself seems like a very straight forward international spy flick. But it is not, and writer-director Jeffrey Nachmanoff (‘The Day After Tomorrow’) raises the bar introducing a dose of possible reality into the story which create different layers for the characters and the film itself. The outcome is brilliant – just as the twist is revealed – and will spark questions among the audience as well as keeping them entertained. In my opinion, not all films can do that these days.

By comparison, the solid acting in the film brings out what is at the heart of the story. The mix of conflicts – not only of politics and religion – but of the individual characters in ‘Traitor’ is one of the intriguing parts of the film that works so well. Cheadle’s character Horn is a religious man who questions his motives throughout but yet knows that his actions are necessary. On the flip side, the FBI agent following Horn is a non-traditional character following his gut instinct instead of the rule book. On an all, Nachmanoff has a great set of actors to play on his characters too. Cheadle and Pierce are not the only great performers here. Jeff Daniel, Neil McDonough and Said Taghmaoui (‘The Kite Runner’) are superb and the latter worth of an Oscar nod.

‘Traitor’ is a surprisingly good film. An excellent way to close the summer season – that has been kind of a dozy in the last couple of weeks. Though Nachmanoff’s film might be thought of controversial is nonetheless a great way to inspire critical thinking. Kudos are in order.

Check out ‘Traitor’ Official