Traitor review

After watching Traitor, Jeremy Nachmanoff will be a name that lingers on the mind for all the wrong reasons. As writer and director of this gargantuan cinematic folly, one must wonder what Hollywood hotshot granted this first time director this modest budget to throw against the wall. Shooting from his own tired script that contains some of the most inane dialogue since T.J Hooker and containing some of the most ham-fisted direction since Uwe Boll's Alone In The Dark, this ill-judged film is an amateurish mess.

The subject of extremism in film is one that's still relatively ripe for exploration, whether it's sensitively handled in such titles as Paradise Now or in more brash affairs such as The Siege and The Kingdom. It's a topic that can make thought-provoking cinema as well as entertaining cinematic fodder. Traitor comes up with the initially clever idea of having an American citizen turning against his own country. The charismatic Don Cheadle takes centre stage as the elusive bomber, who along with extremist Said Taghmaoui attempts to inflict a reign of terror against the U.S whilst in pursuit by the FBI and the CIA.

The main problem with the film is the director's inability to coherently communicate a story through the medium of film. Somewhere buried within Traitor is a good idea struggling to get out but Nachmanoff's continued attempts to stamp a mark in his first feature film squanders any directorial intention he may be trying to relay.

It's simple enough to recognise great cinematography but rarely is shoddy camera-work noticed, here Nachmanoff seemingly attempts to lift the close-up off-kilter camera techniques from the Bourne Supremacy but ends up resembling Battlefield Earth. Ignoring the age-old mantra that if you don't know where to move the camera, keep it still - here the constantly moving camera is an utter annoyance through the duration of the movie.

And then there's the script, every cliché is unwittingly thrown in and every line of dialogue is borderline laughable. You hope throughout that someone will give a knowing nod to what exactly they're saying, aware of the fact that even She's All That had it's moments, but it's all played so seriously and with this extended whiff of wanton grandeur that it's either a classic case of 'doing it for the money' or they genuinely believe they're in a film that has a deeper meaning.

Guy Pearce, Jeff Daniels and Don Cheadle look bored throughout as they walk to their marks and read whatever line of the banal script is assigned to them, the only actor who comes across as convincing is the always consistent Said Tamagouhi as a steadfast promoter of extremism, he finds weight in a role that's could easily have been bare-bones.

It's hard to find anything to recommend in a film continually hampered by Nachmanoff's misguided attempts at direction, as the ominous score comes in and Don Cheadle looks into the distance, pouts and murders another line from the abomination of a script. It honest to goodness feels like a film that was made by someone who didn't have a clue what they were doing.

Jonny Dawson