Parents' Guide to Traitor

Taut and intriguing -- for the most part, anyway -- Traitor succeeds on a basic level thanks to Cheadle's acting prowess. Rather than playing Horn as a typical action-hero prototype, he creates a character so complicated and conflicted that the movie nearly transcends its flaws. Nearly. But it does have flaws. For starters, it skates over too many details -- how Horn metamorphosed from government soldier to arms trader, how his tangled web got its start. And while it certainly attempts to present a more full-bodied representation of extremists and extremism, the movie relies a little too much on shorthand, even though it willingly takes on a complex subject.

If not for the great acting ensemble, the enterprise would come across as paint-by-numbers. As it is, for a thriller, it feels slack and predictable in places -- as in Horn's encounters with a prison bully and how his response buys him the respect of others, for example. And, at times, it's self-consciously ponderous. But there's no denying the film's timeliness and its laudable efforts at injecting humanity into a hot-button debate. Director Jeffrey Nachmanoff, who also co-wrote the script, doesn't just rely on dogma and polemics, and for that he deserves some kudos.