Traitor: Closely Watched

Everything is not what it seems in the new feature thriller Traitor. For much of the movie, along with dogged FBI investigator Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce), we watch ex-U.S. Special Operations officer Samir Horn (Don Cheadle) operate suspiciously but ambivalently among a group of international terrorists in Yemen, Nice, and London. Is he enabling or undercutting the terrorists? We don’t really know. So we lean forward, looking for any sign of Horn’s real intentions in Cheadle’s eyes, which imply much but give away nothing.

Leaning forward, of course, is precisely where director Jeffrey Nachmanoff and film editor Billy Fox would have us. And by leveraging Nachmanoff’s two-handed grip on the story as writer/director, as well as a flexible editorial workflow running through Final Cut Studio, they were able to work their cat’s cradle plot from final script through post until they found the through line that would generate maximum audience lean.

Real Thrills

Nachmanoff was originally hired onto Traitor as a writer to develop an idea by Steve Martin (that Steve Martin). “Steve had come up with some really great ideas and kind of a great third act twist,” he says. “I came on board to say how can we turn this into a feature-length screenplay.” Nachmanoff’s crisp pitching and stellar script eventually earned him a chance to direct his first feature.

His concept was to situate and develop a classic action thriller in an authentic modern milieu: “Most thrillers and espionage pieces that have been made in recent times are either mythical villains or comic book heroes versus people wearing makeup or mechanical arms,” he says. “Or they’re Cold War movies. I thought it was an interesting challenge to try to make a traditional thriller, but set it in the real world.”

Global Economy

Nachmanoff had production experience working as an editor and cinematographer out of USC film school before turning chiefly to screenwriting, but he had never run anything close to the $25 million dollar budget it would take to make Traitor. He upped the logistical challenges when he decided to feature the international settings, shooting cinema verité style in 7 cities on 3 continents in 48 days.