Traitor (2008)

"Once upon a time it was the Americans who were terrorists to the British. They're forgetting their history already." 
                                                                 - Omar

2008’s Traitor is a great movie betrayed by its generic title and bland trailer. It’s a movie filled with nuance and faith and a really good performance by Don Cheadle.

Cheadle plays Samir, a devout Muslim who may be an extremist taking on the West or an inside man working in deep cover for the US. With a story such as this where allegiances are not quite what they seem it’s easy for a storyline to become overly complex (Inception – one too many dreams within dreams), but Traitor navigates itself into just enough layers of deception without losing the viewers. In this sense it will remind you more of a movie like The Departed.

What works so well in a layered movie like this is Cheadle’s performance. Certain events unfold throughout the story that will set of a chain of thoughts in the minds of the audience. “Oh shit, they killed dude, and he knew about that other guy, and now that he’s dead…oh shit!” These moments of internal revelation are expressed so perfectly by Cheadle it’s really exciting. Slight facial gestures like a turn of his eye or a brief twitch of the lips all work so well he might as well be looking at the audience and saying, “Did you just see that shit?” but he never utters a word; it's all through subtle expression.

It’s a shame that Traitor didn’t make more of a splash. But it’s also nice to see that while this sort of movie could have starred a bigger name like a Will Smith or Jamie Foxx, a constantly reliable actor like Don Cheadle was able to shine. (Also I’d be remiss if I did mention how great Saïd Taghmaoui is as Omar. Saïd shines in just about every movie he’s in and he does not disappoint here).