Viewed in
2010
Formats
HD TV
Premise
Don Cheadle stars as an American undercover to infiltrate a terrorist organization as a terrorist... or is he?
Liked
The intelligent dialogue.
Disliked
Cheadle's performance. Shocking, huh?
Thoughts
A pretty good film.
While there were quite a few action and thriller moments, I saw it more as a thinking man's film. The soul of the story was the intellignet conversations between characters, as they explored themes of politics, terrorism, the war on terror religion, violence, and when is doing the right thing wrong.
I was impressed by the production value and the film makers' ability to tell a coherent story. You would think story-telling is a fundamental thing, but in thrillers with double-agents and secrets, often the plot trips on itself with complexity. Here, there was never a doubt what was happening onscreen despite the mystery of Cheadle's character and I appreciated that. As for production value, you could have fooled me with that $22 million budget with multiple locations, explosion stunts and authentic-looking sets depicting bombing aftermaths.
The cast was pretty cool too, with some recognizable indie people like Jeff Daniels and Guy Pearce. Unknown actor (to me) Said Taghmaoui was quite excellent as Cheadle's partner in crime.
As a big fan of Cheadle, I was oddly disappointed by his performance. Here was the "hero" of the story, a double-agent with possible conflicting, ulterior motives, yet I felt none of it onscreen. Part of it might be the film's technique of never seeing his character internally, the audience was always distanced from him, with narrative coming from the agents/terrorists trying to peel the layers. The film makers intended me to sympathize with Cheadle's character, but somehow Cheadle was not able to make him emotionally interesting. Oh well, even the great ones miss once in while.
A smaller issue was that sometimes the cool dialogue about war and such felt too preachy or too obvious, instead of seamlessly fitting into the film.
More of a brainy thriller than a memorable nail-biter, it explored some interesting ideas about the war on terror, but I found it emotionally empty.
What I would change
Not sure, but I would at least try to play around with Cheadle's performance.
Random
The Steve Martin was a contributor to the story. Along with his recent Twitter flurry, his creative longevity astounds me sometimes.
