''Traitor'' is a 2008 American

spy Espionage, spying, or intelligence gathering is the act of obtaining secret or confidential information (intelligence) from non-disclosed sources or divulging of the same without the permission of the holder of the information for a tangib ...

thriller film Thriller film, also known as suspense film or suspense thriller, is a broad film genre that evokes excitement and suspense in the audience. The suspense element found in most films' plots is particularly exploited by the filmmaker in this genre ...

written and directed by

Jeffrey Nachmanoff Jeffrey Nachmanoff (born March 9, 1967) is an American screenwriter and director. He wrote the screenplay for the 2004 blockbuster film ''The Day After Tomorrow''. He wrote and directed ''Traitor (film), Traitor'', which was released on August 27 ...

, based on a story by

Steve Martin Stephen Glenn Martin (born August 14, 1945) is an American actor, comedian, writer, producer, and musician. He has won five Grammy Awards, a Primetime Emmy Award, and was awarded an Honorary Academy Award in 2013. Additionally, he was nominated ...

. In the film, a Sudanese-American former US soldier (

Don Cheadle Donald Frank Cheadle Jr. (; born November 29, 1964) is an American actor. He is the recipient of multiple accolades, including two Grammy Awards, a Tony Award, two Golden Globe Awards and two Screen Actors Guild Awards. He has also earned ...

) with a background in explosives is the prime suspect in a search by an FBI Special Agent (

Guy Pearce Guy Edward Pearce (born 5 October 1967) is an Australian actor. Born in Ely, Cambridgeshire in England, and raised in Geelong, Victoria (Australia), Victoria in Australia, he started his career portraying Mike Young (Neighbours), Mike Young in ...

) for the bomb-maker in a string of global terror explosions aimed at civilians. The film was released on August 27, 2008. It received generally positive reviews from critics and grossed $27 million against its $22 million budget.

Plot

Samir Horn is an

Arabic Arabic (, ' ; , ' or ) is a Semitic languages, Semitic language spoken primarily across the Arab world.Semitic languages: an international handbook / edited by Stefan Weninger; in collaboration with Geoffrey Khan, Michael P. Streck, Janet C ...

-speaking

Sudan Sudan ( or ; ar, السودان, as-Sūdān, officially the Republic of the Sudan ( ar, جمهورية السودان, link=no, Jumhūriyyat as-Sūdān), is a country in Northeast Africa. It shares borders with the Central African Republic t ...

ese-American and devout

Muslim Muslims ( ar, المسلمون, , ) are people who adhere to Islam, a monotheistic religion belonging to the Abrahamic tradition. They consider the Quran, the foundational religious text of Islam, to be the verbatim word of the God of Abrah ...

. His Sudanese father was killed by a car bomb when he was a child. As an adult, Samir is first seen operating as an arms dealer. While negotiating a deal with Omar in

Yemen Yemen (; ar, ٱلْيَمَن, al-Yaman), officially the Republic of Yemen,, ) is a country in Western Asia. It is situated on the southern end of the Arabian Peninsula, and borders Saudi Arabia to the Saudi Arabia–Yemen border, north and ...

he is arrested and thrown into a Yemeni jail. Later, Samir and Omar become friends, and when Omar's people arrange an escape, they take Samir with them. They meet Fareed, a lieutenant in the al-Nathir terrorist organization.

FBI The Federal Bureau of Investigation (FBI) is the domestic Intelligence agency, intelligence and Security agency, security service of the United States and its principal Federal law enforcement in the United States, federal law enforcement age ...

Special Agent Roy Clayton suspects Samir has been radicalized and begins tracking him. Joining al-Nathir, Samir uses the skills he learned as a Special Forces Engineer Sergeant with the

U.S. Army Special Forces The United States Army Special Forces (SF), colloquially known as the "Green Berets" due to their distinctive service headgear, are a special operations force of the United States Army. The Green Berets are geared towards nine doctrinal m ...

to bomb the U.S. Consulate in

Nice Nice ( , ; Niçard: , classical norm, or , nonstandard, ; it, Nizza ; lij, Nissa; grc, Νίκαια; la, Nicaea) is the prefecture of the Alpes-Maritimes department in France. The Nice agglomeration extends far beyond the administrative c ...

France France (), officially the French Republic ( ), is a country primarily located in Western Europe. It also comprises of Overseas France, overseas regions and territories in the Americas and the Atlantic Ocean, Atlantic, Pacific Ocean, Pac ...

. It is revealed that Samir is working under

deep cover ''Deep Cover'' is a 1992 American action thriller film starring Laurence Fishburne, Jeff Goldblum and Charles Martin Smith, and directed by veteran actor Bill Duke in his third directorial outing. The screenplay was written by Henry Bean and Ac ...

for a U.S. intelligence contractor, Carter. Samir is devastated when he learns that despite his and Carter's covert efforts, innocent people perished in the consulate bombing. Impressed with Samir, Fareed introduces him to leader Nathir, who discloses a plot to place suicide bombers on 50 buses in the US during

Thanksgiving Thanksgiving is a national holiday celebrated on various dates in the United States, Canada, Grenada, Saint Lucia, Liberia, and unofficially in countries like Brazil and Philippines. It is also observed in the Netherlander town of Leiden and ...

. He instructs Samir to act as liaison to each of the al-Nathir sleeper bombers. Later, Carter unwittingly interrupts a meeting between Samir and Omar, and Carter is killed by Omar. Samir reveals his deep cover to Clayton, who tracks him to Halifax,

Nova Scotia Nova Scotia ( ; ; ) is one of the thirteen provinces and territories of Canada. It is one of the three Maritime provinces and one of the four Atlantic provinces. Nova Scotia is Latin for "New Scotland". Most of the population are native Eng ...

Canada Canada is a country in North America. Its ten provinces and three territories extend from the Atlantic Ocean to the Pacific Ocean and northward into the Arctic Ocean, covering over , making it the world's second-largest country by tot ...

. While investigating, Clayton also discovers the deaths in Nice were fake, save for one. While onboard a cargo ship to

Marseille Marseille ( , , ; also spelled in English as Marseilles; oc, Marselha ) is the prefecture of the French department of Bouches-du-Rhône and capital of the Provence-Alpes-Côte d'Azur region. Situated in the camargue region of southern Franc ...

, France, Samir kills Nathir and Fareed. Hed tells an enraged Omar that by targeting innocents, they betrayed Islam. Samir then tells Omar that he switched the bombers' emails and placed them all on the same bus, so all of them died without victims (except for the driver of the one bus). The Canadian police and the FBI storm the area, kill Omar, and injure Samir. Later, underneath the L in Chicago, Samir tells Clayton he feels guilty for killing innocent people, and that the

Qur'an The Quran (, ; Standard Arabic: , Quranic Arabic: , , 'the recitation'), also romanized Qur'an or Koran, is the central religious text of Islam, believed by Muslims to be a revelation from God. It is organized in 114 chapters (pl.: , sing. ...

says that to kill an innocent person is to kill all mankind. Clayton responds by noting that the Qur'an also says that by saving an innocent person, he has saved all mankind. He tells Samir he is a hero and assures him of a possible career with the FBI.

Cast

as Samir Horn *

as FBI agent Roy Clayton *

Saïd Taghmaoui Saïd Taghmaoui (born 19 July 1973) is a French-American actor and screenwriter. One of his major screen roles was that of Saïd in the 1995 French film ''La Haine'', directed by Mathieu Kassovitz. Taghmaoui has also appeared in a number of En ...

as Omar *

Neal McDonough Neal McDonough (born February 13, 1966) is an American actor. He is known for his portrayal of Lieutenant Lynn Compton, Lynn "Buck" Compton in the HBO miniseries ''Band of Brothers (miniseries), Band of Brothers'' (2001), Deputy District Attorney ...

as FBI agent Max Archer * Jeff Daniels as Carter *

Archie Panjabi Archana Panjabi (born 31 May 1972) is a British actress. She has had various roles in both UK and US television including as Maya Roy in ''Life on Mars'' (2006–07), Nas Kamal in NBC crime drama '' Blindspot'' (2016–17, 2020), Kendra Malle ...

as Chandra Dawkin *

Mozhan Marnò Mozhan Marnò (born May 3, 1980) is an Iranian-American film and television actress. She is known for her roles in ''The Blacklist'' and ''House of Cards''. Early life and education Marnò was born in Los Angeles. Her parents are from Iran an ...

as Leyla *

Lorena Gale Lorena Gale (May 9, 1958 – June 21, 2009) was a Canadian actress, playwright and theatre director. She was active onstage and in films and television since the 1980s. She also authored two award-winning plays, ''Angélique'' and ''Je me so ...

as Dierdre Horn *

Alyy Khan Alyy Khan (or Aly Khan, ur, ; born 6 December 1968) is a British-Asian actor and host who has worked in Hollywood, Bollywood and Lollywood films and television series. He is known for his roles in the films '' A Mighty Heart'' (2007), '' ...

as Fareed * Raad Rawi as Nathir *

Adeel Akhtar Adeel Akhtar (born 18 September 1980) is a British actor. In 2017, he won the British Academy Television Award for Best Actor for his role in ''Murdered by My Father''. He was also nominated for a BAFTA for Best Supporting Actor for his role o ...

as Hamzi

Production

The project had been in development since 2002 and was originally set to be produced by

Walt Disney Pictures Walt Disney Pictures is an American film production company and subsidiary of Walt Disney Studios, which is owned by The Walt Disney Company. The studio is the flagship producer of live-action feature films within the Walt Disney Studios uni ...

(through

Touchstone Pictures Touchstone Pictures, Inc. was an American film production label of Walt Disney Studios, founded and owned by The Walt Disney Company. Feature films released under the Touchstone label were produced and financed by Walt Disney Studios, and featu ...

), but was dropped owing to management change. It was picked up by

Overture Films Overture Films was an American film production and distribution company and a subsidiary of Starz (then subsidiary of Liberty Media). It was founded in November 2006 by Chris McGurk and Danny Rosett. Through its affiliated companies Anchor Bay E ...

Principal photography Principal photography is the phase of producing a film or television show in which the bulk of shooting takes place, as distinct from the phases of pre-production and post-production. Personnel Besides the main film personnel, such as actor ...

started in early September, 2007, in

Toronto Toronto ( ; or ) is the capital city of the Canadian province of Ontario. With a recorded population of 2,794,356 in 2021, it is the most populous city in Canada and the fourth most populous city in North America. The city is the ancho ...

, and

Marrakesh Marrakesh or Marrakech ( or ; ar, مراكش, murrākuš, ; ber, ⵎⵕⵕⴰⴽⵛ, translit=mṛṛakc}) is the fourth largest city in the Kingdom of Morocco. It is one of the four Imperial cities of Morocco and is the capital of the Marrakes ...

Reception

Critical response

Rotten Tomatoes Rotten Tomatoes is an American review-aggregation website for film and television. The company was launched in August 1998 by three undergraduate students at the University of California, Berkeley: Senh Duong, Patrick Y. Lee, and Stephen Wang ...

, the film holds an approval rating of 65% based on 169 reviews, with an average rating of 6.19/10. The website's critics consensus reads: "Despite another reliable performance from Don Cheadle, ''Traitor'' suffers from too many cliches and an unfocused narrative."

Metacritic Metacritic is a website that review aggregator, aggregates reviews of films, TV shows, music albums, video games and formerly, books. For each product, the scores from each review are averaged (a weighted arithmetic mean, weighted average). M ...

assigned the film a weighted average score of 61 out of 100, based on 29 critics, indicating "generally favorable reviews".

Roger Ebert Roger Joseph Ebert (; June 18, 1942 – April 4, 2013) was an American film critic, film historian, journalist, screenwriter, and author. He was a film critic for the ''Chicago Sun-Times'' from 1967 until his death in 2013. In 1975, Ebert beca ...

of the ''

Chicago Sun-Times The ''Chicago Sun-Times'' is a daily newspaper published in Chicago, Illinois, United States. Since 2022, it is the flagship paper of Chicago Public Media, and has the second largest circulation among Chicago newspapers, after the ''Chicago T ...

'' gave the film three stars out of four and wrote in his review, "The movie proceeds quickly, seems to know its subject matter, is fascinating in its portrait of the inner politics and structure of the terrorist group, and comes uncomfortably close to reality. But what holds it together is the Cheadle character."

Box office

The film opened #5 with $7.9 million from 2,054 in its opening weekend. It went on to gross $23.5 million in the United States, and $2.2 million in other markets, for a total $27.6 million worldwide.

Related films

'' Anwar'', a 2010 Indian Malayalam language film, is an uncredited remake of ''Traitor''.

References

External links

* * * * * {{DEFAULTSORT:Traitor (Film) 2008 films Films about the Federal Bureau of Investigation Films about terrorism Films shot in Hamilton, Ontario Films shot in Morocco Films shot in Toronto Films set in Nova Scotia Overture Films films 2008 action thriller films 2000s spy thriller films American action thriller films American spy thriller films Mandeville Films films Thanksgiving in films Films produced by David Hoberman Films produced by Todd Lieberman 2000s English-language films 2000s American films