X
- 2016
- R
- Roadside Attractions
- 1 h 48 m
- 2016
- R
- Roadside Attractions
- 1 h 48 m
Summary While on holiday in Marrakech, an ordinary English couple, Perry (Ewan McGregor) and Gail (Naomie Harris), befriend a flamboyant and charismatic Russian, Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), who unbeknownst to them is a kingpin money launderer for the Russian mafia. When Dima asks for their help to deliver classified information to the British Secr...
Directed By: Susanna White
Written By: John le Carré, Hossein Amini
- 2016
- R
- Roadside Attractions
- 1 h 48 m
- 2016
- R
- Roadside Attractions
- 1 h 48 m
Our Kind of Traitor
57
6.3
Where to Watch
Summary While on holiday in Marrakech, an ordinary English couple, Perry (Ewan McGregor) and Gail (Naomie Harris), befriend a flamboyant and charismatic Russian, Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), who unbeknownst to them is a kingpin money launderer for the Russian mafia. When Dima asks for their help to deliver classified information to the British Secr...
Directed By: Susanna White
Written By: John le Carré, Hossein Amini
Where to Watch
Top Cast
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
57
43% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
53% Mixed
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Metascore
Mixed or Average
Based on 30 Critic Reviews
57
43% Positive
13 Reviews
13 Reviews
53% Mixed
16 Reviews
16 Reviews
3% Negative
1 Review
1 Review
Director Susanna White keeps things low-key and absorbing, as the action moves from Marrakesh to London to Paris to Switzerland.
Director Susanna White, on only her second feature, jazzes up the proceedings to match the skill of actors like McGregor, Harris, and Skarsgård. Most notable is her smart use of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 42 User Ratings
6.3
50% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
45% Mixed
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
5% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
User Score
Generally Favorable
Based on 42 User Ratings
6.3
50% Positive
21 Ratings
21 Ratings
45% Mixed
19 Ratings
19 Ratings
5% Negative
2 Ratings
2 Ratings
Efficent thriller with some taste of Hitchcock. Accurate post twist and unexpected ending makes it a good for a weekend evening. Remarkable role of Ewan Mc Gregor.
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Directed by Susanna White, Our Kind of Traitor received a largely mixed reception upon its release this past Summer, which is really too bad. Another adaptation of a John Le Carre novel, Our Kind of Traitor is the least of his recent adaptations (The Constant Gardener; Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy; A Most Wanted Man), but still a high quality spy thriller. Starring Ewan McGregor as Perry, a professor who is unexpectedly approached with vital information on the Russian Mafia by gangster Dima (Stellan Skarsgard), the film is a slow building film, but one with a stellar pay-off.
As with all of the adaptations of Le Carre's novels, Our Kind of Traitor is incredibly precise. Its actions are slow and drawn out. This allows White to inject the film with incredible tension and, occasionally, a unique visual style. Throughout the film, much of the film has this very sleek, glowing look that establishes Our Kind of Traitor as both a good looking film and a decidedly modern one. At times, however, it can be extremely distracting. For example, there is one scene in which McGregor is sitting and is overtaken by a bright orange lens flare that obscures our view of him. I can only hope that was unintentional.
Yet, even when that occurs, the film is incredibly well-written. Tense, deliberate, and with a ton of moving parts, Our Kind of Traitor is a Le Carre spy adaptation, through and through. It is very subtle and a lot happens that the film simply expects the audience to keep up with it. Fortunately, if you are paying attention, this is hardly a challenge and it is very rewarding to watch a film that trusts its audience to keep up and does not feel the need to spell everything out.
The acting in Our Kind of Traitor is also tremendous. McGregor is terrific in the lead role, as the unsuspecting and personally maligned college professor who gets thrown into international politics. Skarsgard, as the repentant and family-focused member of the Russian mafia, is boisterous and loud when needed, but equally solemn and subtle when things turn serious. The balance he strikes between these two personalities is quite compelling to watch and never a let down. As the stolid MI6 agent, Damian Lewis is pretty stereotypical, but brought a cold, calculating edge to the role that really made his performance incredibly captivating.
In a world of action spy films dominated by James Bond and Ethan Hunt, John Le Carre spy films are a breath of fresh air every time. Even if Our Kind of Traitor is not the best film of the recent bunch, it is still a terrific spy film that is thrilling, engaging, and smart. Even better, it respects its audience and trusts us to follow along with the complicated web it weaves. Our Kind of Traitor is simply my kind of film.
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I don't the think the "look" is quite right for the story. Nor is the dreamy, wandering score by Marcelo Zarvos, which adds the blandest sort of ambient "tension music" to whatever's going on. McGregor struggles to make Perry credible in his credulousness; Harris, far better, doesn't have enough to do; Skarsgard is fun.
Although engaging enough to hold interest, the just slightly off casting of Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgard...dampens plausibility.
The shattering of one’s noble ideals is a delicate thing to capture on film, and White plays the moment of rupture with a banality that threatens to undermine our faith in her as storyteller more than in the system itself.
For almost an hour, it keeps us off balance. But once we find that balance, the movie seems to coast.
A dismal, low-energy affair.
The spy genre continues to be one of the most popular Hollywood themes making the rounds in the theaters. This time we have an adaptation from the master himself, John le Carré, starring Ewan McGregor as a citizen spy who is reluctantly dragged into a Russian Mafia intrigue, and Naomie Harris, fresh from her role as Moneypenny in the last James Bond extravaganza. In this film Harris is no longer an unobtrusive sidekick for Bond’s sardonic and self-assured bravado. She is one of the two principals, and she plays an intelligent lawyer who is trying to heal her damaged marriage. Having her empathetic husband fall into the good graces of a Russian Mafia front man who is about to be fired from his job as chief accountant and then murdered along with his family, only serves to make her marital woes that much more complicated.
Gail (Naomie Harris) and Perry (Ewan McGregor) are trying to mend their marriage on a romantic holiday in Marrakesh, when Gail leaves Perry alone at a restaurant after dinner just two nights before they are due to fly back to London. Sitting by himself, he attracts the attention of a friendly but coarse and obnoxious Russian named Dima (Stellan Skarsgård). Dima invites Perry to his table, takes him to a party meant for decadent millionaires only, and then insists upon an early morning tennis match. Finally, after having bonded heavily with the mild-mannered professor of poetics, Dima tells Perry his dark secret. He is the chief accountant in charge of all the Swiss bank accounts for the Russian Mafia, now headed by a businessman/gangster called the Prince. Dima is in possession of incriminating knowledge; he knows that when he signs off on the accounts a few weeks hence, he and his family will be murdered, as was the previous accountant. He needs Perry to take back to London for him a memory stick of all the numbers and names on the Swiss bank accounts, which include top members of British Parliament. The British government is about to accept billions of dollars in funding from the Prince, who masquerades as a legitimate multibillionaire businessman. Dima needs to expose the scam and convince the British government to offer him and his family asylum in England. Perry agrees to be his messenger.
Thus begins a complicated and tense escapade, where Perry and Gail get more and more involved, along with the small number of British government officials who are willing to investigate the scandal and try to bring it down. This is not the kind of spy movie where there are multiple chase scenes in cars, speedboats, and planes. This is a more subtle kind of spycraft that involves a lot of talking, political negotiations, and patient waiting. As in real life, sometimes the action lags; nevertheless, the quiet, low-key kind of suspense generated by the plot is unrelenting from the first scene to the very end. McGregor has to carry what is occasionally a talking-heads plot for the entire film along with a lot of help from Harris, and the two of them make a good team. Skarsgård, who is actually Swedish, is brilliant in the role of Dima.
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Beautifully restrained but also too polite, Susanna White's adaptation of John Le Carre's Our Kind of Traitor is just tense and twisty enough to warrant a viewing.
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I give this a 6 because I like Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris, and the acting overall is excellent. But the story .... Listen, this is a fine rental when the price comes down but don't pay top dollar in the theater to see it. The novel may have been better, but here is the problem with the movie. Actually, there are three: First, the theme the director discusses in the "extras" is just not there. It was either never in the script or it got cut out after it was filmed. Every story, even an action movie or thriller, is best when it has a psychological dimension. Here, the fledgling relationship between the main couple was meant to create that dimension. The movie opens in Marrakesh. The husband feels like he's not a real man anymore. His wife's career is soaring. He's lost. He stumbles across this Russian mafia guy trying to turn good by smuggling secret information out of Marakesh to London (There's more to the mafioso's reasons than that, but I don't want to create a spoiler). The husband decides to help the mafioso, in order to give his life purpose and feel like someone who matters. But I'm making all this up about the husband, his motivation, because it's not there in the movie. I just know that it's supposed to be because of what I was told in the "extras" feature. But it should be in the actual movie, not only in the extras. The couple and their issues and the husband's sense of inadequacy never come across directly or indirectly, by dialogue or action. Unless a vacant stare of five seconds by Ewan McGregor is supposed to be sufficient. It's not. Big miss there.
Problem number two: I will be vague so as not to create any spoiler. Someone hides away in a very good place, far away, impossible to locate. Yet, magically, the bad guys show up. No explanation given. Problem number three: Later, something else major happens, very major, actually it's the climactic moment of the whole movie. It makes no sense, or only vague sense if you want to write some of the story yourself in your head to explain it, which is what I did. But the movie studio is not paying me, so why am I sitting there writing plot in my head to explain what's happening on the screen? Major major problem.
I want to see visual, audio hints, scenes, events that demonstrate to me what the heck went on. I don't want to just see a set piece, big action, and walk away saying OK whatever I guess there must have been something to explain that but they just didn't show it to us.
To recap, this movie has 3 major problems: (1) no psychological depth (i.e. the personal story of the couple and how that explained the main character's motivation); (2) the magical appearance of the bad guys at one point; and (3) the big finish set piece occurring without any explanation as to how. I can guess why, just guess, but have no idea how.
So rent it when it's cheap, and while you wait, read the book (which probably does not have the above problems) or 3/4 of it, saving the last bit to surprise you in the movie.
If they go back and shoot some more scenes, add 20 minutes to fill in those gaps and you could have a great movie. The movie's under 2 hours so they actually could do that and it wouldn't be too long. But of course this will never happen.
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A modestly entertaining spy thriller that, unfortunately, falls prey to a surprising degree of predictability (unusual for a John Le Carre tale), as well as uneven character development and occasionally slow pacing. The fine ensemble cast does its best to cover the material and maintain suspense, particularly Damian Lewis, and the story's diverse location shots are beautifully filmed. However, these assets aren't enough to catapult this picture to the usual level of excellence seen in works of this kind.
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I agree with what NikolayG says here....what the heck is the explanation for the BIG BIG DRAMATIC moment of the **** a peep about it !.....also many of the serious problems with the film originate from the somewhat "goofy" premise that this couple will suddenly TOTALLY put their lives on hold so they can help this Russian mobster on the run "save his family and get them to **** really !! Also after the wife sees her husband having passionate sex with another woman in the back of a party they are attending- she SULKS for a few minutes and never brings it up !.....ya sure....happens all the time !
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Production Company
StudioCanal,
Film4,
Anton,
Amazon Prime Video,
The Ink Factory,
Potboiler Productions
Release Date Jul 1, 2016
Duration 1 h 48 m
Rating R
Tagline Who can you trust with the truth?
Awards
National Film Awards, UK
• 2 Nominations
British Independent Film Awards
• 1 Nomination
London Critics Circle Film Awards
• 1 Nomination
