Jeffrey Nachmanoff was not the initial choice to direct Traitor from his own script, but the first-timer has gone on to do a creditable job on the “taut international action spy thriller” and deserves congratulations for sidestepping that genre’s love affair with lingering fiery explosions and onscreen computer monitors. From an outline given him, he needed to build a plot to reach the “surprising final twist” and so came up with making his black hero both an American of foreign birth and a practicing Muslim.

The surprise actually given away early to audience, though not characters, the hundred-ten minutes spends too much time tying together its ambitious double strands and should have cut minutes here, there, and elsewhere or concentrated one way or the other like similar films. Still, if predictable -- Don Cheadle’s Samir Horn cannot conceivably be a villain -- the result is good entertainment.

Sometimes coinciding in time and place, with shooting in France, Morocco, London and Ontario, two sets of partners actually meet only at start and finish as they cat-and-mouse for high stakes. Each pair has its religious, sane member -- Horn and, son and grandson of ministers, FBI agent Roy Clayton (Guy Pearce); and a second, contrasted partner who, while not evil, believes that violent means is allowable in seeking a just end -- rough-‘em-up fellow agent Max Archer (Neal McDonough) for the West, and believer-terrorist soldier Omar (French-Moroccan Saïd Taghmaoui). Tangential but also among those who will trade lives for the amorphous greater good, is Carter (Jeff Daniels), a lone-wolf for the CIA, which, as in other recent movies, refuses to share information or let the right hand know what its left is doing.

Reared by his Muslim mother Melissa (Lorena Gale) after he witnessed the car-bomb death of his devout chess-playing father in 1978 Sudan, rebellious educated Horn was a Special Forces staff sergeant at Fort Bragg but, now on his own, turns up in, and vanishes from, Afghanistan, Bosnia, Middle East hot spots. His Toyota SUV carts Semtex detonators (and his personal expertise) to Ahmed’s insurgents, but most are killed in a government raid following which, after interrogation by kid-gloves Roy and hands-on Max, he finds himself in jail, tested by bullies but defended by tough Omar.

SPOILER ALERT

A breakout springs them, and his new friend insists that Horn be taken along with the six rescued men. From time to time across a chessboard, frequently debating religion, justice and the politics of power, repression and retaliation, the two reach a mutual trust as Omar recruits “my brother” into a group field-generaled by suave Fareed (Aly Khan) but internationally commanded by Nahir (Raad Rawi).

Whereas in Chicago Clayton can get nothing out of two canny ladies in his quarry’s life, Melissa and longtime more than friend Chandra Banks (Archie Panjabi), the hunted man must validate his revolutionary chops and cred in Mediterranean and London bombings -- an awkward attack on Costa del Sol tourists is not his doing but provides a prisoner and leads. He balks at a disciplinary action in Marseilles but, with Omar’s backing, is accepted as authentic and into the inner circle which is leading up to simultaneous bus explosions in the American heartland.

The FBI gathers databases but cannot possibly investigate all aliens, including the tens of thousands legally in the country, many on student visas. The film is good at integrating without dwelling on the isolated suicide foot soldiers, and downright scary on the plausible underground network and plotting. In its anxiety to absolve central figure Horn, who insists “the truth is, it’s complicated” in the wake of unforeseen collateral damage, and to emphasize his dilemma to recognize and effect “the right thing,” the cat is let out of the bag too soon.

The title double-edged, Traitor, however, sticks to its main guns as a spy-fanatic-jihad thriller. In this it succeeds better than many others, for there is indeed a dreadful feeling that the scenario is not far-fetched. Along with the unmitigated guilty, Samir Horn has to face additional innocent deaths. To onetime religion major Clayton’s reminder that, in the Koran, he who saves one life saves all mankind, Horn clings to the Prophet’s stricture that taking any life is tantamount to killing everyone. Final prayers among a mosque congregation balance opening devotions with a father, but individual man is left to live with himself and his past, with the evil that good men do.

(Released by Overture Films and rated "PG-13" for intense violent sequences, thematic material and brief language.)