Our Kind of Traitor

The peti­tion to secure Susan­na White direct­ing duties on the next Bond movie starts right here. This slick John le Carré adap­ta­tion is an exem­plary call­ing card – she even man­ages to make Ewan McGre­gor seem like an intrigu­ing screen pres­ence. He plays a uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sor called Per­ry who, unlike arche­typ­al uni­ver­si­ty pro­fes­sors, is always up for some fisticuffs. He’s on hol­i­day with his wife, Gail (Naomie Har­ris), and in the dog house for cheat­ing with a student.

But the heal­ing process is inter­rupt­ed when the pair are boozi­ly thrown togeth­er with the charis­mat­ic Dima (Stel­lan Skarsgård) who just wants them to hand in an inno­cent flash dri­ve to UK cus­toms on their way back home. It turns out he’s an accoun­tant for the Russ­ian Mafia, and a recent change of lead­er­ship has also result­ed in a clear­ing out of old wood. The UK is the only chance he has to save his fam­i­ly from vio­lent death.

For its first half, the film works like a dream, with the cou­ple plac­ing
their cosy exis­tence and tri­fling emo­tion­al trau­mas on the back-burn­er in order to help a man who – indi­rect­ly – is respon­si­ble for much death and destruc­tion. It’s like advanced cou­ples ther­a­py, dis­plac­ing lengthy heart-to-hearts with heart-pound­ing adven­ture. But then it all falls away, with Har­ris being swept aside and a quaint, bro­man­tic love affair erupt­ing between Per­ry and Dima.

The feel­ing is that White and screen­writer Hos­sein Ami­ni are try­ing to force too much sto­ry into too lit­tle screen time, and so the film’s final 45 min­utes are a hot hash of hasty expo­si­tion, pre­dictable twists and under­whelm­ing action. If White does hap­pen to get the Bond gig, then she might make for a neat pair­ing with Damien Lewis, who crops up here as an unflap­pable, lone­ly M15 stooge whose love of food and wine present him as an enlight­ened mod­ern gent.