Rented the DVD yesterday, based on recommendations they'd been receiving from customers at the counter. Expected the standard slam-bang shoot 'em up. Got a thinking person's terrorism thriller instead, from a team that has apparently done its homework. A rare thing these days, vs. crap like "Syriana", and worth appreciating.
"Traitor" came out in summer 2008 without much promotion, and kind of sank in the quicksand. That's a shame, as it's pretty much tailor-made for Winds readers. I recommend picking up the DVD or stream next time you're looking for a movie rental.
Don Cheadle is the lead and he's excellent as the center of the movie. He had to be, as the script's midpoint is longer than usual and totally revolves around him. Said Taghmaoui shines, and Aussie/Englishman Guy Pearce does a very, very good southern baptist FBI agent. Wish that character had been developed a bit more than it was, but the movie has a lot of moving parts and that limits options. That complexity isn't integrated well enough to make it a "10" in my book, but I definitely give it a solid "8."
NOTE: Some plot spoilers in the comments.
I saw it about a week ago on DVD (gotta love Netflix). It was pretty good, though somewhat spoiled for me by Cheadle's character being afflicted with a bad case of Horatio Caine Syndrome. He's better at and knows more about everything than everybody and is a veritable paragon of moral enlightenment. Basically, everyone else in the movie exists solely to illustrate how Awe-Inspiringly Wonderful he is compared to their poor flawed selves.
No posturing with sunglasses, though, I'll give him that.
I liked that movie much more than I thought I would.
I don't quite agree with Achillea's point, for 3 reasons:
(1) It's not necessarily that he is always better, just that he usually picks his times and matchups well. Something you'd expect from an ex-Special Forces background.
(2) His virtue is hardly unsullied, to say the least; and there are others who are clearly both virtuous and capable on their own.
(3) If you think it through, a character with his basic background need not be any sort of superman to do what's done. It all does flow from the character concept, and that core concept is not unrealistic.
SEMI-SPOILER:
The crisis-conclusion was a bit too just-so for me to believe (and I did see it coming; no brag, just fact). I have some specific experience with that mode of transportation that makes the logistics quite implausible to me.
Still, suspending that bit of disbelief, the movie was worthy and I'm glad I saw it.
That poor bus driver...
Yeah.
Hated this movie -- it was a waste of Don Cheadle's talent.
Count the memes. Here's a random selection of stupid liberal lies about the war on terror that got parroted by characters in this movie:
"We've created a whole new generation of terrorists by pursuing the Iraq War",
"The Ku Klux Klan is the Christian equivalent of Hamas",
"Homeland Security is a joke",
"Most terrorists aren't Middle Eastern, so racial profiling is pointless",
"The Muslims are just fighting for their freedom",
"George Washington was a terrorist",
"The next terrorist to detonate a bus could be the soccer mom next door"
and on and on... what drivel.
No sale.
BBB
I'll limit myself to pointing out that some of those lines are uttered by unreliable narrators.