Conservatives and 'Traitor'

As Dirty Harry points out, conservative film critics are somewhat split about ‘Traitor.’ He hated it, as did Peter Suderman (though Peter disliked it because he found it boring, rather than for thematic reasons, I think). Christian Totothought it was kind of meh, but found it refreshing that Hollywood at least tried to portray Islamic terrorism honestly. I liked it–though I went into my screening expecting more of a suspenseful thriller than a big actioner–and especially appreciated the thematic elements: elements you often see ignored, and dealt with dishonestly when they are examined.

(Is that about right, guys? Don’t want to misrepresent anyone.)

As Mr. Harry noted in an email conversation during the week, “Could we have disagreed on TRAITOR more? That’s why I love the movies my friend.” The point being that, as a subjective exercise, movie criticism lends itself to friendly disagreements.

What I’d like to do utilize the power of the blogosphere (and our own collective brilliance) to come up with suggestions as to how to improve a flick like “Traitor”–to make it a movie we’d all recommend to our viewers. If we were to eliminate the Neal McDonough character–the ugly American stereotype–would that do it? Dirty Harry hated the ending; I’ll be honest, I found it pretty innocuous myself. What was your problem with it? Did I miss something? (Perhaps we can go into spoilers in the comments or in future posts.)

Just a thought. The nerdosphere did a good job shaping the world of comic book movies; perhaps we could do the same thing for political thrillers.