Samir Horn [Don Cheadle] is an Islamic explosive expert. He is caught selling some devices to a customer in a raid and is arrested and taken to prison. In jail he befriends Omar [Saïd Taghmaoui], who is a soldier in a special operation against the America. He is taken in by this terrorist group to help the operation while trying best to not be noticed by Special Agent Roy Clayton [Guy Pearce].

To be honest I really was not sure what this movie was really I must say after watching it. I thought this would be like what Body of Lies seems to be, except for Islam. Instead here is this movie that I’m sure is the perfect film for me to call it a ‘split decision’. Meaning that you either love it or hate it, because it is just so not 100% regular Hollywood BS. I don’t know how to say anything about this movie without explaining that it is different.

I didn’t really enjoy this movie, but at the same time I didn’t fully hate it. I feel almost like I should give it a second viewing before I properly review it – but there is no way I’m paying another $500 so here we are – because I think I may be missing something.

My first problem with this movie is that excepting for Don Cheadle, everyone I feel acted really badly. The number one on the hate list for really bad acting has to be Special Agent Max Archer [Neal McDonough]. His character had absolutely no subtlety at all. And Guy Pearce wasn’t that good either. He seemed to be the regular everyday agent character, when this movie really needed someone like Ethan Hawke from Lord of War.

And just to let you know, if you take a look at the trailer for this movie and take a note of how long it is. That is exactly how long Jeff Daniels is in this movie. I liked that for the first half of the movie we don’t know that Don Cheadle has anything to do with the USA – other than blowing them up of course. You spend the first half thinking, ‘I know I saw Jeff Daniels in the trailer,’ and wondering if he already is an undercover, or if he turns on them half way through. So I liked that, but definitely didn’t like that there was so little of Jeff Daniels in this movie, he’s a good actor and probably deserves some more scenes for the movie.

The direction I think was good. Jeffery Nachmanoff did okay. Except I thought that at some points he was trying too hard to mimic some Bourne style shooting; especially when it came to the escape scene early in the film. He kept using the shaky cam to make sure that we kept feeling confused and unsure, when it really is a simple scene. What I did like – even thought the camera does kind of gives it away – is the end sequence on the bus.

Overall maybe a second viewing will improve my thoughts about this movie but right now I can’t recommend this movie.

IMDB says 7.4/10

Rotten Tomatoes says 52%

I say 5.5/10