Closing in on nearly 500 movies rated 3 stars. My greatest fear when it’s all said and done is to be labeled a 3-star merchant by my peers when it comes to film absorption. It’s the easiest defense mechanism to lump everything into an area of ‘just okay’ and never able to have things overtake or fall below over time. If everything is average then you’re actually saying everything is terrible or perfect. I maybe just love it when people either wrap around something when they feel it or reject it wholeheartedly. It’s a way you get to commit and it lets people admire the conviction. I think this is a fear of mine because I am obsessed with watching programmers, by far the type of movies I watch most are these mid-budget super conventional genre movies that are usually elevated by one or two names attached, some messy qualities or just things that sit below the line of so-called appropriate taste. So even if most of these movies are ‘just okay’ at best, you watch so many over time that certain ones separate from the pack in your mind.
The movies like *Traitor *from 2008 are just reminders that we don’t really even have these anymore and if they are made, they don’t look like anything with a pulse. It doesn’t matter than this if fairly predictable and hasn’t aged great, there is something real camera moves and it’s being carried by 2 people, really just one. Don Cheadle and Guy Pearce conspiracy thriller with a hamfisted 2008 political-religious backdrop, and less than 15k logs? Yeah sign me up. This is just begging to be used as a double feature with *Body of Lies*, same year and everything. One is working with Leonardo DiCaprio, Russell Crowe and Ridley Scott but I promise you they’re the same movie. Meant to be watched on TNT before dinner on a weeknight, some of my favorites no doubt.
Steve Martin, yes that same very one is attributed with his only story credit on this.
