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I’d like to be sitting in back of a theater to watch the reverse action of a crowd suckered into “Traitor” by the TV ad’s claim that it’s every performing thriller like the “Bourne” movies.

“Uhhh, how tend hitherward there’s so much prayin’ to Allah and not much fightin’?”

Not calm close to a “Bourne” flick, it’s more like a “Mohammed Brasco,” about a devout Muslim demolitions experienced person who goes deep while suffering include to infiltrate a terrorist group. If there isn’t already a cultural suspense genre, maybe this’ll disturb it.

Don Cheadle (”Hotel Rwanda,” “Crash”) plays a Sudanese-born former U.S. Special Forces soldier named Samir Horn who has a talent for making things reach boom. Caught making a deal with terrorists, he’s thrown in a Yemeni prison where two things happen: He’s interrogated by enlightened FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce) and his old school smack-’em-around one of a firm, Archer (Neal McDonough); and he becomes fast friends by a terrorist named Omar (Saïd Taghmaoui), who helps him get away. (Omar would have existence the Al Pacino in “Mohammed Brasco.”)

If “Traitor” is cognate a “Bourne” movie in any respect at all, it’s the globe-trotting, as the cat-and-mouse game between Horn and Clayton takes them to locations encircling the world. Gradually proving his way into the terrorist group end different bombings that all seem to have some kind of obstacle in them, Horn is absolutely working for a CIA contractor (Jeff Daniels) aiming for the terrorist bigwig before a major symbolic attack in the U.S. heartland.

As the first blustering American blockbuster movie I can think of with a devout Muslim great man, it may take an setting to rights for some, but that’s not what makes “Traitor” difficult. Filmmakers seem to err on the party of overcautiousness whenever it comes to depicting Middle Eastern bad guys — and hey, I remember covering a protest for 1998’s “The Seige” by people who hadn’t even seen it. “Traitor” is a much smarter, nervier and added tangled movie, but it’s distillery too by-the-numbers and preceptive. For instance, Agent Clayton is a Middle East expert and clearly the only one out of all worldwide law enforcement who seems able to find his own backside with both hands. Just too stock, especially in his awkward dialogue with the more ignorant Archer.

Not the whole of Muslims are jihadist nutcases? Hey, thanks!

Some of the people who don’t like Americans might actually have valid reasons? Oh, pause, you!

Having said that, it’s still the Southern-accented Clayton whom I’d rather see in a spinoff, like Tommy Lee Jones’ character in “The Fugitive,” since the filmmakers meanly give up enough touching the tormented Horn to make you requirement to stick with him. It’s not the character’s ambiguity — the choices he makes to stay undercover, let alone a problematic decisive proceeding that’s supposed to be heroic. It’s that he’s too much of a ghost, and even a ability like Cheadle’s can’t bring out material that isn’t there.

First-time mentor Jeffrey Nachmanoff, known for “The Day After Tomorrow” script, wrote the screenplay. Of all men, Steve Martin came up with the essence. It is neither wild nor crazy.

Mark Rahner: 206-464-8259

or mrahner@seattletimes.com