Our Kind of Traitor – Film Review by Emily Elphinstone

Director: Susanna White
Writers: Hossein Amini (screenplay), John le Carré (novel)
Stars: Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis, Naomie Harris

The novels of John Le Carré have, in recent years, provided a rich goldmine for adaptations; including 2011’s Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, and the slightly too recent BBC adaptation of The Night Manager.

Adapted from Le Carré’s 2010 novel by Hossein Amini, Our Kind of Traitor focuses on university professor Perry (Ewan McGregor) and his barrister wife Gail (Naomie Harris), holidaying in Morocco in a bid to get their marriage back on track. After meeting flamboyant Russian money-launderer Dima (a show stealing Stellan Skarsgard); Perry is persuaded to deliver classified information to the British secret services on their return home. Though optimistically hoping to simply drop it off with customs at the airport; the couple quickly find themselves embroiled in international espionage involving Russian oligarch ‘The Prince’ (Grigoriy Dobrygin) and British politicians including Aubrey Longrigg (Jeremy Northam); drawn ever further into the operation by determined MI6 handler Hector (Damian Lewis).

Though occasionally appearing to be in a different film to the other characters, Skarsgard and Lewis undoubtedly steal the show as the eccentric mobster and the oddball agent, bringing the action up to true Le Carré levels of intrigue; and the most interesting moments of the film are in the power play between these characters, and those they are surrounded by. Anthony Dod Mantle’s cinematography provides a stunning backdrop to the action, making the most of the varied locations; and Susanna White’s focused direction keeps the audience engaged, though moments like an irrelevant trip to the Tours Aillaud housing projects in Paris seem to have no other purpose than to raise tension, and emphasise the contrast between ‘goodies’ and ‘baddies’.

Our Kind of Traitor is an engrossing film, but unfortunately it doesn’t compare favourably to the likes of The Night Manager, and never quite reaches peak drama or suspense. At the centre, McGregor and Harris are likeable, but overly polished, as ‘regular couple’ Perry and Gail. McGregor seems miscast as awkward academic Perry, and Harris is given little more to do than childminding and looking disapproving. There is, however, a brilliant sense that their characters are only embroiled in the action because of the thoroughly British trait of saying yes, simply because they can’t think of a polite way to say no. It might not be an entirely successful film, but with some interesting moments of silent brilliantly downplayed suspense, and political power-play; Our Kind of Traitor proves there is still great fun to be had in espionage.