Traitor with Don Cheadle

As fans of Don Cheadle, Jenn and I made a point of going to see Traitor on its opening weekend last year. In it, Cheadle plays Samir Horn, a former Special Forces soldier working under “deep cover” with a group of Islamic terrorists who operate in Yemen, France, and elsewhere. He reports entirely off the books to a US government official played by a (surprisingly bulky) Jeff Daniels. An FBI agent played by Guy Pearce, believing Horn is a genuine terrorist, is tracking him closely.

Is Horn in fact a US government spy? Or have his traumatic life experiences and his long exposure to radical Muslims turned him into a double agent? It’s an exciting story, intelligently written, well acted, and well directed. Yet it didn’t do particularly well at the box office ($7 million on its opening weekend).

A few days ago we watched it again on DVD, and were caught up once again in the drama. Even when you know the secrets, it’s a compelling movie.

So what was the problem? Are moviegoers not interested in seeing black leading men who are not Will Smith or Denzel Washington? (They saw Hotel Rwanda, after all.) Was this film too hard for people to follow? (It wasn’t as difficult as, say, Syriana.) Or did people find its portrayal of terrorists too sympathetic? The terrorists, particularly Horn’s friend Omar, are presented as dangerous fanatics but nonetheless human beings. Yet I don’t think most people would know this unless they actually saw the film.