This is a thriller with all the assets of a
John le Carré novel—complexity, ambiguity, sharp sleuthing, and heroism—Our Kind of Traitor will keep you on the
edge of your seat and make you want to take breaks to relieve the gripping
tension. It begins mysteriously in
Moscow at the Bolshoi Ballet (featuring former Houston Ballet dancer, Carlos
Acosta), cutting away from time to time to elsewhere where a sober man is seen
signing papers under the watchful eyes of a team of sinister men, then he and
his friend rejoin their wives and head home. However, they will never make it.
The setting then switches to Marrakesh in Morocco where
Perry (McGregor) and his wife Gail (Harris) are on holiday, when by chance
Perry meets a gregarious Russian named Dima (Skarsgärd) who takes him to a wild
party with fellow Russians. Dima
seems to be taken with Perry, and invites him to play tennis the next day at
his club where they meet each other’s wives, and Perry meets Dima’s children,
an older girl and younger twins.
Unbeknownst to him, Perry is in deeper than he would ever imagine. He is a fairly typical young English
professor of poetics, far removed from Dima’s circles in the Russian mafia.
The plot involves the British intelligence
service when Dima’s underlying motive for friendship with Perry emerges: Fearing for his life, knowing he is the
target of the Russian boss’s threat, Dima wants to defect with his family to
London in exchange for giving MI6 incriminating information about high level
officials in the British government.
Hector (Lewis), an MI6 agent, is willing to run with it, but his
superior sees it as “You have no proof”, and more as a personal vendetta on
Hector’s part to go after his rival Aubrey (Northam), another agent, so advises
against it.
The director of the film, Susanna White, keeps
the action of the story at a pace similar to one’s sense in reading a le Carré
novel—fast and steady with spikes of intrigue and fear. The fine casting of McGregor, Lewis,
Skarsgärd, and Northam in the principal roles contribute much to its quality,
complemented by the engaging music of Marcelo Zarvos and intelligent and
beautiful cinematography of Anthony Dod Mantle. I like the way the Perry character is shown at first to be
kind of wimpy and easily led on, but as the story proceeds and he gets more and
more attached to the fatherly Dima, he transitions into something resembling
heroic. Despite his being a mafia
figure, we’re made to admire Dima’s hutzpa, likeableness, devotion to family,
and strength in combat, beautifully evinced by the talented Skarsgärd. Lewis is at home playing a shrewd agent
with a moral compass that compels him to seek justice for corrupt
individuals. Naomie Harris as
Perry’s girlfriend/wife and a lawyer is valuable as a support and advisor.
In the past I have not been a Le Carré fan—I
find his plots very dense, tedious, and sometimes hard to follow (except for
the TV adaptation of The Night Manager,
which I loved), but Hossein Amini’s screenplay maps the plot very clearly while
maintaining ambiguity and excitement.
I liked it as much as I did The
Night Manager.
Another John Le Carré thriller.
Grade: A By
Donna R. Copeland
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