Traipsing the Excluded Middle
Written: Sep 19 '08
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Product Rating:
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| Bang For The Buck |
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Pros: bleh
Cons: reh
The Bottom Line: read the review instead, it's short
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| xeno3998's Full Review: Traitor |
The first film of the year save Dark Knight to meet my expectations in their entirety, Traitor was a thrill ride from its first scene to its climax. Don Cheadle plays the role of Samir, an explosives expert who once worked for the US military, coming into contact with a radical terrorist sect who takes him under their wing. In doing so, he becomes the main target of the FBI, who believe he might be responsible for a string of terrorist attacks.
As dense with plot twists as it is political subtext and social commentary, Traitor succeeds in negotiating the tense middleground between the West and Islam. Its most poignant moments involve good people becoming lost in that very middleground, caught in the crossfire between radicals on both ends, each pounding the drums of a holy war against their respective 'other'. When Cheadle becomes the most wanted enemy, a target to be shot on sight by the very people he sought to protect, it speaks volumes about the disparity between the real villains in the war on terror and the men we choose to attack.
In the end, everyone ends up with blood on their hands. Lives are lost, principles betrayed, tensions exacerbated, and what is left in the final scene of the film is the chilling reminder that we are still no closer to victory than we were at the beginning.
Traitor is a pure masterpiece. A little-regarded film in spite of its relevance in an election year that is once again turning over the seemingly-defunct war on terror issue, its unpopularity is perhaps only fitting given the diplomacy and sobriety with which it treats one of the most complicated sociological and political issues of our time. That kind of level-headedness simply does not belong in a culture so obsessed with violence and which still suffers from a repressed undercurrent of racism. See it if you, unlike the majority of our citizenry, can appreciate the difference between a Muslim and a terrorist... and then consider, for a second, how different our landscape would look if more people could make that distinction.
Recommended:
Yes
Movie Mood: Die-hard Fans Only
Viewing Method: Other
Film Completeness: A few glitches, but mostly complete.
Worst Part of this Film: Everything
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xeno3998
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