“War is just the lesser Jihad. To resist temptation and live a righteous life, that is the greater Jihad.”
A byproduct of living in such a confusing time is that we develop a taste for heroes and villains to be just as confused as we are. If there’s something about the War on Terror that Traitor captured correctly, it’s that the war is a war with no hero or villain, just soldiers holding on to what they feel is just. The film reveals that even terrorists are conflicted about interpreting the Qur’an as a mass-murder manual, and that many of them are—like any good foot soldier here in America—ordinary men having their dearly held beliefs manipulated by fat cat leaders who pull strings from afar. In one scene, a 17-year-old kid volunteers for a suicide bombing, believing it to be a crown achievement, unafraid of death. Yet when he makes a mistake and sicced on by others, the boy runs for his life. Makes you wonder what it is really that breeds these so-called martyrs.
For a spy thriller, Traitor is actually quite an underwhelming ride. The action never really hits a high note, only serving to break up the monotony of the usual espionage jargon-talks. The story, which takes such ludicrous turns at times, inspires more curiosity than suspense. It’s a very generic stop-the-bomb thriller plot, with tension that doesn’t quite bite and twists that are both predictable and overused. Usually, all this point to a forgettable thriller that’s a dime a dozen, especially since terrorism became such a buzzword. So why is it that Traitor resonated?
I was taken by the movie. Throughout it, I wanted to know what happens next. Not because it sends you to the edge of your seat, pumping you up for the next twist, but because you’re too invested in the characters. Those expecting a Bourne kind of movie would find themselves watching a different movie altogether; something closer in tone to A Mighty Heart than 24. Traitor is not about a super-agent stopping a terrorist cell, but about a humble man of God torn between his faith and his duty.
Those who have seen the Showtime mini-series Sleeper Cell from a couple of years back would find Traitor’s premise very familiar. That’s because they’re exactly the same, both concerning a devout Muslim agent of the United States government strenuously fighting his own inner conflict when he has to go undercover in a sleeper cell. Don Cheadle stars as Samir Horn, a Sudanese-born who witnessed his father killed by a car bomb at the age of twelve. Moving to Chicago soon after, he grew up and joined Special Ops. While fighting alongside the Mujahideen, Samir got in touch with his Islamic roots and disappeared. That is, until they are now the enemy and the FBI tags Samir as a high-value terrorist connected to a series of bombings in Europe. Hot on his trail is Agent Clayton (Guy Pearce), who starts to question if there’s more to Samir than just a traitor and a terrorist.
Despite the silliness of the terrorist schemes and the utter preposterousness of the resolution at the end regarding a synchronized attack on US soil, Traitor is noteworthy for giving us a very sympathetic look at the humans behind the evil facade of terrorism. Of course, it still indulges in scare tactics, convincing us that sleeper agents are undetectable and unsuspecting—the four we follow in this movie: a picket-fence suburbanite, a pretty young college student, a rancher family man, and a pierced hipster Barista. Whodathunk? The real insight is in the cell leader, a swanky borguise who breaks Islamic code by drinking alcohol and eating pork, claiming that it’s necessary to maintain cover; all the while, young people die for his cause. Is it any different from the politics we know?
It is the Samir Horn character that breaks Traitor out of its conventional thriller mold—which, all said and done, plays exactly like every other undercover cop movie from The Departed to Donnie Brasco—because he’s not just unwaveringly Muslim, but also Sudanese before American. Hunted, antagonized and trapped, Samir still nevertheless risks body and soul to fulfill his duty to a country he wasn’t even born in. Traitor reminds that America was never a culture in itself, but a collection of contributing immigrants from all over that band together and survive together.
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