The story of Samir Horn (Don Cheadle), a man of Sudanese and American parentage, as he navigates the jihadi world. The audience is meant to be in suspense as to whether Samir is a traitor to the jihadis who befriend him, or the American handlers who believe he is inflitrating a terrorist cell. And Cheadle tries, only somewhat successfully, to convey how conflicted he is. This movie does a lot of things right, the most important being to give a co-starring role Said Taghmaoui, who was so superb in a minor role in Three Kings, and is far and away the most intersting thing about this movie. It paints a fairly gritty picture of the environment that produces suicide bombers, and the underground networks that recruit and nurture them. The movie also deserves some credit for trying to explain Samir’s motivation in terms of his commitment to, and interpretation of, the Koran. Thus it presents an alternative view of Islam, one that empahsizes non-violence. That said, the movie is dull and efforts to ramp up the tension are limited to making the soundtrack more instrusive. Cheadle is also diappointing, wearing a single dour expression the entire time. He can be so much fun when he flashes a smile and avoids the cockney accent he is weighted down with in the Ocean movies, but here he is largely a cipher, forced to utter a series of earnest but silly lines.
I meant to post on this film a while ago but lost my momentum. The film struck me as one which is meant to impress you with its serious approach to Major Issues–but ten minutes after I had seen it, I began to think it was really very stupid. I’m not sure who Said is, but can he be Omar the Soulful Killer? Chris–I’m afraid I found that role ridiculous. I also had no idea (SPOILERS AHEAD) why Cheadle’s character had to go ahead and let the bus bombing plot play itself out completely–he could have eliminated the main suspects early on, once they were all identified,no? And then his solution to the problem had a slapstick quality which I’m sure the film didn’t mean–he puts all 30 bombers on the same bus! Hey-O! but what about the other people on that bus–don’t they generally hold 50-60? And we are meant to believe that a single renegade intellgience official is the only one who knows of Horn’s mission–and that he allows a bombing of an embassy in France to go ahead, killing 7 people? Again, it’s one of those films which appears to be about politics/history/contemporary events but which is really about the same old narrative turns and twists being applied once more, this time in a rather unbelievable and crude way. and another thing..so one guy would have to travel around the whole country delivering bombs to each potential martyr..isn’t that kinda inefficient? and then Horn derails the plot simply by unplugging a public computer terminal? I did like the moment when they decide to give the inept kid another chance at being a suicide bomber–come on, don’t be so hard on him, let him have another go! I mean there’s no reason to be fanatical about it….
I was referring to Said’s performance, not the role he was meant to be playing, though I didn’t find the latter as ridiculous as you did. Film makers dealing with terrorists have the basic choice of depicting them as mad-eyed lunatics or more intellectually committed to the cause. Since it is much rarer, I prefer the latter. Said is there to represent the jihadi perspective, and to provide an intellectual and emotional tug on Samir in one direction.
Nevertheless, the plot is indeed ridiculous. I think the justification for allowing the bombing to go ahead and the innocent to die is to put Samir alongside the mastermind, who can then be killed. But I’m only guessing; the movie never explains.
I’m pretty sure Said Taghmaoui will be joining the cast of LOST this January.
just watched this. i liked the first 15 minutes or so and then it got stupid fast. i do like said taghmaoui in most things i’ve seen him in but i worry that it must be very difficult for him to fly these days, what with all these roles he gets. the character did seem to go very quickly from a hardcore ideologue to samir horn’s bff.
the other plot holes/folly aside, it’s a little strange how a film that seems to think it has interesting things to say about terrorism manages to confirm paranoid delusions that every arab in the u.s is potentially a terrorist.