MAN ON MISSIONS: Devout Muslim Samir (Don Cheadle) fights wars on two fronts: within his own religious beliefs and within the political/legal arena, and he questions the nature of freedom in Traitor, which plays at the Fairmount Cinema 6.
PHOTO COURTESY OF OVERTURE FILMS
SEBRING, August 31, 2008 – Movies about terrorism have had difficulty grabbing and holding the American moviegoing public. Our nerves remain raw in the wake of September 11, and we have shied away from movies that relive the bad memories, especially those which cast our people or our government in an unfavorable light. Even the heralded United 93 was a difficult film to watch, so much do its depictions grieve and anger us.
Unlike those previous efforts, however, Traitor tackles the emotions, the politics, the religion within or beneath the superficial conflict apparent in the dalily doses of bloody newspaper and broadcast accounts. With a balanced measure of heart and intellect, Traitor tells the story of Samir, a devout Muslim born in Sudan and rasied in the United States.
Two things shape Samir’s life: his father’s reverence for and submission to God, and his father’s murder – the man is blown up as he enters a car. We are never told who did it, but the implication is that Muslim exremists did.
Other influences contribute to who Samir will be: the wisdom of Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr., a Christian minister, life in a Chicago ghetto, his girlfriend and, loosely, the qualified rightness and liberty of the American cause.
But Samir’s primary conflict is within is own devoted faith to God and to the teachings of the Koran. He has become a bombmaker, but does he work for the U.S. or does he work for terrorists? Samir questions the rightness of killing innocents. For him, the important jihad – holy war – is against the evil within himself, not against those who believe differently from himself.
Don Cheadle wraps the character of Samir around himself. He gives a refined and delicate performance that extrudes the struggle and the integrity of the man. Cheadle and the strong supporting cast deliver an outstanding film that highlights the conflict of all those who want to do God’s will and live rightly. We heartily recommend it.
Traitor is rated PG-13 for some violence and strong thematic material. It plays at the Fairmount Cinema 6.
Our SEBRING CINEMA AND SPORTS rating, 1 to 5, 5 being a classic:
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