Well I have done it. After 15 or more years of nearly doing it, I have gone ahead. I have taken Sky Films.
As someone who was taken to the cinema in the later 1940’s every Monday and Thursday evening by my care and birth mothers, went to the Children’s show on Saturday mornings, and was sometimes taken with older first cousins on Sunday evenings to watch the latest releases, I resisted taking out the subscription, knowing I would want to watch films morning, noon and night until I had seen all that was available and then over again, and perhaps again. I was right of course because now that I have taken out the subscription I want to watch films morning, noon and night
The reason for the change is that by switching Internet and telephone subscriptions to Sky I have been able to add an HD box and Sky films for the same overall cost than before. I know I should have kept the saving.
And so I have commenced a week of wall to wall films, not in HD yet, that will come in wall to wall films week 2. The first film was a great surprise, topical, continuous suspense, unable to work out its conclusion which is a good twist, although does not pass the test of subsequent consideration. However of the films experienced in the opening 24 hours, it was the most immediately satisfying as well as the first.
The theme of the Traitor is one of disturbing ongoing threat by fanatical Muslims against anyone who does not share their perverted mentality and the heroic self sacrificing efforts of a genuine Muslim against the damaging perversion of his faith by others.
However while at one level this a film about the battle between good and evil on the earth planet, it demonstrates the complexities and contradictions of arising when the same situation or set of circumstances is viewed by people with different backgrounds and perspectives.
The story is of Samir Horn, played by Don Cheadle, who is one of the eight listed producers, with Steve Martin also a producer of his story, directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff who provides the screenplay. The Sudanese Druze father of a Samir, a devout Muslim teacher, is killed by a car bomb when he is a child and he grows up also a devout Muslim, and an Arabic English speaking Sudanese -USA American.
When the film begins he appears to be an arms dealer selling Semtex and weapons to the highest bidders and to Omar, a senior operative in a terrorist network operating in the Yemen. Just when the deal is about to be sealed, the site is raided and they are captured and taken to jail where as terrorist suspects they are roughly treated. As appears to be common in prisons world wide there is an inmate with assistants who has control of everyone, dictating behaviour and roles, and Samir is badly beaten up when he intervenes in a situation of apparent injustice. This took be back to my own experience when with other male Operation Foulness prisoners we intervened as a new inmate was being picked on for brutal treatment by other prisoners because of his alleged specific offence. As in the film the prison officers either condone such victimization or encourage it by confirming or releasing information about specific individuals. In this instance it is Samir who intervenes, impressed by genuine devotion of Samir and invites him to join his planned and well organised breakout. He gives Samir the option of walking away when they reach the French port of Marseilles, or joining the Islamic Terrorist brotherhood. He joins and gains prestige by promoting and executing a plot to blow up the USA Embassy in Nice in which human beings are killed.
The group make their way to London where the bombing is celebrated and it is in London that we learn that in fact Samir is working undercover in a secret operation, we only learn later for an anti terrorist contractor with the USA counter Terrorism organisation. The bombing had been planned and designed not to cause loss of life with two fake bodies, but there had been an unexpected development in which seven migrants in illegal occupation of a neighbouring building were killed. Samir is badly affected by this development questioning the validity of the operation which we learn is to find the location of the organiser of the group as a means of stopping the major action which is known to being planned.
The plan is revealed to be using 50 long term placed suicide bombers to simultaneously blow up trans state buses thus bringing home to everyone in the USA/ Samir’s role is to deliver the bombs to the sleepers and advises them of how to detonate. He also devises a plan for the instructional emails to be delivered beforehand to be opened early on July 4th with details of the journey to be taken. He achieves 30 visits before it is necessary to curtail the distribution and head for a location from which they are to make their escape by a sea freighter.
While Samir has been making progress in identifying the head of the organisation finds himself identified by the FBI when returning to the USA who have been keeping watch on his former girl friend. Earlier when it appears that the original bomber for the project in France has been identified the young man is killed because he has broken undertakings not to reveal his work to anyone and admits he did mention to a relative to be in position to help his family after his death. Now when the Samir has also compromised the operation, despite his individual importance he expects the same fate, but he survives because the USA government put him on the most wanted list after finding the body of his anti terrorist contractor contact who Omar has killed when tracking the movements of Samir and it appears before Samir has been able to communicate information about the plan and the whereabouts of the organisation’s leader.
While this is happening a special FBI agent has been tracking Samir through numerous countries and apprehended one major cell and also had direct contact with Samir and given him contact information. He traces Samir and the group to the harbour at Halifax Nova Scotia where they are waiting to depart in the freighter when everyone is present. However while the net closes it appears too late to stop the execution of the plot on Thanksgiving Day. Samir takes the law into his own hands and kills the leaders and others and during the gun fight he is badly wounded. It is only when the FBI team arrive that we learn what happened in the plan. Samir has arranged for all the bombers to be on one coach including the coach driver so they blow each other up. This is a great twist in the story, but raises how it was possible in reality to have arranged this without also involving other passengers or vehicles in the vicinity of the explosion
The films ends a little later. Samir has recovered and the lead FBI contact tries to recruit him to undertake further work as the task is not done. Samir resists the offer overwhelmed with the guilt of the deaths on his hands despite the vast number of innocent lives which he has saved. However the door is open for a sequel.
Apart from the bully criminal in the prison early on in the film, the terrorists and ant terrorists in the film are not dehumanised but presented as sincere, if misguided individuals, or dedicated law enforcement officers. The film is well written, directed and acted and poses important questions such as how to prevent future terrorism and is killing innocent individuals ever justified ion the context of the greater strategy and objectives of the democratic state. The British government, having cracked the Nazi code knew of the proposed mass bombing of Coventry beforehand but took no action to intervene or warn the population because of the need to continued to use the broken code. This morning I also read in the Daily Telegraph that Britain may have known that radio telegraph operators dropped into Belgium and Holland had been apprehended (all but four of 50 odd spies were captured and executed) and replaced by those who did not include the correct mistakes used to established genuineness. If it is legitimate for democratic government to use such tactics why is in not for their opponents, include those who operate unconventionally?
As someone who was taken to the cinema in the later 1940’s every Monday and Thursday evening by my care and birth mothers, went to the Children’s show on Saturday mornings, and was sometimes taken with older first cousins on Sunday evenings to watch the latest releases, I resisted taking out the subscription, knowing I would want to watch films morning, noon and night until I had seen all that was available and then over again, and perhaps again. I was right of course because now that I have taken out the subscription I want to watch films morning, noon and night
The reason for the change is that by switching Internet and telephone subscriptions to Sky I have been able to add an HD box and Sky films for the same overall cost than before. I know I should have kept the saving.
And so I have commenced a week of wall to wall films, not in HD yet, that will come in wall to wall films week 2. The first film was a great surprise, topical, continuous suspense, unable to work out its conclusion which is a good twist, although does not pass the test of subsequent consideration. However of the films experienced in the opening 24 hours, it was the most immediately satisfying as well as the first.
The theme of the Traitor is one of disturbing ongoing threat by fanatical Muslims against anyone who does not share their perverted mentality and the heroic self sacrificing efforts of a genuine Muslim against the damaging perversion of his faith by others.
However while at one level this a film about the battle between good and evil on the earth planet, it demonstrates the complexities and contradictions of arising when the same situation or set of circumstances is viewed by people with different backgrounds and perspectives.
The story is of Samir Horn, played by Don Cheadle, who is one of the eight listed producers, with Steve Martin also a producer of his story, directed by Jeffrey Nachmanoff who provides the screenplay. The Sudanese Druze father of a Samir, a devout Muslim teacher, is killed by a car bomb when he is a child and he grows up also a devout Muslim, and an Arabic English speaking Sudanese -USA American.
When the film begins he appears to be an arms dealer selling Semtex and weapons to the highest bidders and to Omar, a senior operative in a terrorist network operating in the Yemen. Just when the deal is about to be sealed, the site is raided and they are captured and taken to jail where as terrorist suspects they are roughly treated. As appears to be common in prisons world wide there is an inmate with assistants who has control of everyone, dictating behaviour and roles, and Samir is badly beaten up when he intervenes in a situation of apparent injustice. This took be back to my own experience when with other male Operation Foulness prisoners we intervened as a new inmate was being picked on for brutal treatment by other prisoners because of his alleged specific offence. As in the film the prison officers either condone such victimization or encourage it by confirming or releasing information about specific individuals. In this instance it is Samir who intervenes, impressed by genuine devotion of Samir and invites him to join his planned and well organised breakout. He gives Samir the option of walking away when they reach the French port of Marseilles, or joining the Islamic Terrorist brotherhood. He joins and gains prestige by promoting and executing a plot to blow up the USA Embassy in Nice in which human beings are killed.
The group make their way to London where the bombing is celebrated and it is in London that we learn that in fact Samir is working undercover in a secret operation, we only learn later for an anti terrorist contractor with the USA counter Terrorism organisation. The bombing had been planned and designed not to cause loss of life with two fake bodies, but there had been an unexpected development in which seven migrants in illegal occupation of a neighbouring building were killed. Samir is badly affected by this development questioning the validity of the operation which we learn is to find the location of the organiser of the group as a means of stopping the major action which is known to being planned.
The plan is revealed to be using 50 long term placed suicide bombers to simultaneously blow up trans state buses thus bringing home to everyone in the USA/ Samir’s role is to deliver the bombs to the sleepers and advises them of how to detonate. He also devises a plan for the instructional emails to be delivered beforehand to be opened early on July 4th with details of the journey to be taken. He achieves 30 visits before it is necessary to curtail the distribution and head for a location from which they are to make their escape by a sea freighter.
While Samir has been making progress in identifying the head of the organisation finds himself identified by the FBI when returning to the USA who have been keeping watch on his former girl friend. Earlier when it appears that the original bomber for the project in France has been identified the young man is killed because he has broken undertakings not to reveal his work to anyone and admits he did mention to a relative to be in position to help his family after his death. Now when the Samir has also compromised the operation, despite his individual importance he expects the same fate, but he survives because the USA government put him on the most wanted list after finding the body of his anti terrorist contractor contact who Omar has killed when tracking the movements of Samir and it appears before Samir has been able to communicate information about the plan and the whereabouts of the organisation’s leader.
While this is happening a special FBI agent has been tracking Samir through numerous countries and apprehended one major cell and also had direct contact with Samir and given him contact information. He traces Samir and the group to the harbour at Halifax Nova Scotia where they are waiting to depart in the freighter when everyone is present. However while the net closes it appears too late to stop the execution of the plot on Thanksgiving Day. Samir takes the law into his own hands and kills the leaders and others and during the gun fight he is badly wounded. It is only when the FBI team arrive that we learn what happened in the plan. Samir has arranged for all the bombers to be on one coach including the coach driver so they blow each other up. This is a great twist in the story, but raises how it was possible in reality to have arranged this without also involving other passengers or vehicles in the vicinity of the explosion
The films ends a little later. Samir has recovered and the lead FBI contact tries to recruit him to undertake further work as the task is not done. Samir resists the offer overwhelmed with the guilt of the deaths on his hands despite the vast number of innocent lives which he has saved. However the door is open for a sequel.
Apart from the bully criminal in the prison early on in the film, the terrorists and ant terrorists in the film are not dehumanised but presented as sincere, if misguided individuals, or dedicated law enforcement officers. The film is well written, directed and acted and poses important questions such as how to prevent future terrorism and is killing innocent individuals ever justified ion the context of the greater strategy and objectives of the democratic state. The British government, having cracked the Nazi code knew of the proposed mass bombing of Coventry beforehand but took no action to intervene or warn the population because of the need to continued to use the broken code. This morning I also read in the Daily Telegraph that Britain may have known that radio telegraph operators dropped into Belgium and Holland had been apprehended (all but four of 50 odd spies were captured and executed) and replaced by those who did not include the correct mistakes used to established genuineness. If it is legitimate for democratic government to use such tactics why is in not for their opponents, include those who operate unconventionally?
