Cert 15
108 mins
BBFC advice: Contains very strong language, strong sex, violence, drug use, sexual violence
My heart sank when the cinema assistant took our tickets and said: “You will enjoy this – it is similar to Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.”
I am afraid that I was not among those who fell in love with the latter which, to me, was writer John Le Carre at his most opaque.
Thankfully, Le Carre’s Our Kind Of Traitor is much more accessible while still having high enough levels of intrigue to keep the more discerning spy fan happy.
Stellan Skarsgard is the undoubted star of Susanna White’s movie, playing a boisterous Russian mafioso who fears that he and his family are about to be bumped off.
Therefore, he makes a beeline for an impressionable university lecturer (Ewan McGregor) who is trying to patch up his troubled marriage to a feisty lawyer (Naomie Harris) while on holiday in Morocco.
The mafia man persuades his new pal to make contact with the British security services with an eye to granting him asylum but, inevitably, the path of defection is neither straight nor easy.
Damian Lewis impresses as a dogged secret service agent who uncovers a nest of vipers during his attempt to bring the Russian into the UK but it is the erratic relationships between Skarsgard’s character, his ruthless masters and the wide-eyed professor which keep the tension of Our Kind Of Traitor at its most taut.
Reasons to watch: Compelling thriller with great performance by Stellan Skarsgard
Reasons to avoid: Ewan McGregor's character is so wet he is a tad unbelievable
Laughs: none
Jumps: none
Vomit: yes
Nudity: yes
Overall rating: 8/10
Star tweet
Susanna White Two days till UK release of #OurKindofTraitor - only 3.6% of thrillers are directed by women and this is one
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