Traitor, starring and produced by the intelligent and talented Don Cheadle and also starring the beautiful Guy Pearce, one does get pulled into this caper of world wide FBI searching into a terrorist plot. It’s engaging stuff. The acting is solid. The shooting is good. The story, an idea by Steve Martin, is interesting, though fundamentally structured like stories you’ve seen before.
And Don Cheadle gets a little earnest at the end. Too bad.
But this is the thing about Traitor. I was sitting there watching the movie and it just seemed so normal, now, to have a movie about Jihad. It’s just, I guess I always thought it would be a blip, but it is a world idea that seems to be sticking. And it is sticking in movies. And there I am paying to watch it. The terrorists won’t go away. Our need for an enemy won’t go away. Everyone loves a good fight. And in our culture, everyone loves a good fight where we are definitely much mightier. It adds to our smugness.
Clearly, we are all keeping this alive. Why is it still alive?
We need something else.
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