MovieChat Forums > Traitor (2008) Discussion > Help me with the logic please

Help me with the logic please

posted 12 years ago by sup_ben
3 replies | jump to latest

I'm really confused with the plot of the film. Please tell me if I'm wrong interpreting the story:

1. The Secret Service organizes prison break for the group of terrorists in Yemen.

2. With the knowledge of Secret Service the group of terrorists moves to France where they recruit instable French citizens or residents (including teenagers obviously) for the criminal activity. The Secret Service agent trains people in building bombs. As a result at least one person (the young guy) was murdered at this stage.

3. The Secret Service agent absolutely consciously prepares an executes a terror act exploding American consulate on French territory. As a result 6 (supposedly French) workers are dead.

4. With the knowledge of Secret Service the group of terrorists moves to the USA and they are going to explode 50 buses. I don't know, whether they would had enough knowledge or resources to implement this plan, but now they had our Secret Service hero at their disposal.

5. With the knowledge of Secret Service the cell agitates and recruits at least 30 instable American citizens or residents for the criminal activity. The 30 extremely unstable persons have been trained to handle with real explosives. The 30 persons are apparently absolutely not under control of the American authorities, walking just on the streets. Remember, this all happens with silent consent of the Secret Service!

6. At one point the SS loses control over this "operation" since the only contact guy was shot. Fortunately the FBI pursues the "hero". Very effective work, nothing to say - an FBI team busy with Secret Service undercover gang.

7. The Secret Service agent absolutely consciously sends to death 30 people together with other presumable victims (driver of the bus, other passengers).

Well, very nice work done. The question is, what was this whole brilliant operation for? Shouldn't they just arrest the terror group from the very beginning in France and stop the madness? And the agent (Samir) is supposed to be a hero after all? Don't you think he belongs in prison together with his extremely underemployed colleagues from Secret Service forced to organize criminal conspiracies to adjust their own existence?

Fortunately the film is completely fictional and can only be described with words like "cheap" and "propaganda", whether you like it or not.

[–] alveolate 12 years ago

1. the prison break was obviously organised by Omar's men. did you not see him hug the police officer? Omar's men are almost definitely under the command of Fareed. at this point, i would like to point out the pecking order within the Al-Nathir terrorist group: 1. Nathir, 2. Fareed, 3. Omar. also, the film does not clearly state which organisation Samir (Cheadle) works for. i would assume it is the CIA, since Agent Clayton refers to the dead handler as an "intelligence contractor".

2. as far as i understand it, Samir and his handler were working deep undercover: only his handler knew anything. another term for this would be black ops -- the parent agency reserves deniability for the entire operation. and yes, a young muslim man in Marseilles winds up murdered. (he is apparently run over by a train, but his post-mortem picture looks really clean.)

3. this part makes the black ops theory from (2) difficult to assess. i doubt a single handler working black ops could possibly pull off such a huge international cover up with the local authorities without the consent of the parent agency -- yet if the parent agency did assist the collaboration, then they would lose deniability. in fact, the "inter-agency" operation severely backfired since 6 deaths occurred on their watch. very sloppy.

4. as stated, the agency probably did not know Samir's exact plans -- only the handler knew. yet somehow, Samir is able to supply Semtex to 30 different people... where did the Semtex come from? one can only assume the handler was resourceful enough to somehow provide Samir with that much high explosives. (yet he later bungles up and meets Samir unannounced at the worst possible moment.)

5. you really need to pay attention. the "recruits" were planted in America years before by Fareed/Nathir. they themselves said so. these are sleeper cells waiting to be activated.

6. Samir's actual agency was never revealed in the film, but we assume Samir is lost in the cold when his handler was shot (it really was his own fault). at the time the FBI thought Samir killed him; they only caught on when they realised 2 of the dead bodies in Marseilles were planted (yet this does not account for the 6 REAL deaths).

7. apparently... the bus driver was just the most unlucky fellow ever.

if they arrested Omar, the terrorist group would simply find another recruiter.
if they arrested Fareed, the group simply needs another financier/planner.
what they really needed was to capture the head: Nathir himself. that was Samir's mission.

and yes... in typical black ops, Samir would be imprisoned (and left in prison) if he failed his mission and was captured by other agencies. what is much more unlikely is for him to have his files "wiped clean" so he can "live freely".

[–] u-zirnis 11 years ago

Yes, It's a film.

[–] amberd1980 9 years ago

lol. Ok. I can't help it. I wanted to take your questions seriously but WHY would you even assume that Samir was SECRET SERVICE? At best he is CIA black ops...also LONDON is a HOT SPOT for terrorists recruiting and radicalizing. They killed the young man because he ran his mouth. They were looking for a bomber to be the martyr in thier operation that went awry when they had to kill him. Therefore, Samir suggested the bombing of American embassy in which they placed FAKE bodies and the other people killed was an ACCIDENT!
Did you watch the movie? And that's as far as I got with your questions because I couldn't see secret service again. Go back and watch it.

That's as far as I got with your questions