I’m pleased that John le Carré is getting his due these days. His international spy thrillers are much more thoughtful than, say, Mission: Impossible and James Bond films, and hence hit closer to the mark, reality-wise. In the real world, I bet cloak-and-dagger is much more cloak than dagger. The CIA should supply a graph, here. Maybe a pie chart of % cloak-to-dagger, huh? I digress. The biggest problem with le Carré adaptations is that he mostly wrote during the and specifically to the Cold War era. Our Kind of Traitor is not among his Cold War titles, but it’s kind of funny how it all seems Cold War anyway – Eastern European man with information for the West; what’s the dif between the KGB and the Russian Mafia, really?
We know that school teacher Perry (Ewan McGregor) should just ignore the blustery Russian (Stellan Skarsgård) he meets in Marrakech. Everybody knows it. Even Perry knows it on some level. But, let’s face it, his wife Gail (Naomie Harris) isn’t feeling particularly pleased about their current holiday and all this big Russian guy wants is a drink. What’s the harm, right?
Then, of course, the inevitable happens, Dima (Skarsgård) asks Perry to smuggle information to MI6. I wonder what happens if Perry does the logical thing here. I mean, how hard could it be – “look, Dima, thanks for the drinks and the tennis match, but this is a little beyond my nerve grade.” Well, what fun would that be? And the requested task is never cut-and-dried, either, especially when agent Hector (Damian Lewis) discovers MI6 won’t support this mission. Even so, delivery is enough, right? When you get detained at the airport, any airport, that’s a good time to rethink your life choices and here the message
is crystal clear: never grow fond of a Russian mobster’s family.
As if the underlying keep-to-yourself theme isn’t apparent, MI6 shows Perry and Gail some photographs of former Dima colleagues. I’m sorry, Perry, do you need more clues? This is a bad idea. You are a school teacher; these people kidnap, torture and blow s*** up over money. Just money. Sigh. Oh, you English school professors never learn, do you? “Dima has children?” Hey, teacher, leave them kids alone.
Ewan McGregor is pretty good at the in-over-his-head guy. This role is, for me, far more believable than his Obi-Wan Kenobi. Ewan always strikes me as the guy who attempts to save his skin with a 4,000 tooth smile. That ain’t no Jedi Mind Trick, that’s just a guy who knows how to get on somebody’s good side. He probably would have made an excellent Gilderoy Lockhart.
The isn’t the best spy thriller you’ll see. Not even close. But it’s not bad; it’s tense when it needs to be tense and more shocking than the last le Carré (A Most Wanted Man), which just seemed to sit there waiting for a movie to happen. A movie happens in this one.
♪Well my wife is all done with Morocco (she’s ready to go now)
Disappointed her tons now she’s got case
And she’s going to get on a jet for Heathrow
But I just couldn’t nix that big guy’s pand’rin tricks
Yeah this Marrakech really has it all oh yeah, oh yeah
Dima is a slav mobster
Dima is a slav mobster
Dima is a slav mobster now♫
Rated R, 108 Minutes
D: Susanna White
W: Hossein Amini
Genre: Getting in over your head
Type of person most likely to enjoy this film: Risk-takers
Type of person least likely to enjoy this film: “I told ya so”
♪ Parody inspired by “Sheena Is A Punkrocker”
