I’m a big fan of John le Carré. He is one of my favorite writers in one of my favorite literary genres – spy thrillers. His books are very “cinematic” in the structure, and it is no surprise that they have all been adapted to big screens or television series. The characters in the books and the films inspired by John de Carre’s novels are revealing themselves gradually, as the action advances, but never completely, thus the readers or the viewers always remain with the impression that some details are being kept in the shadows even after the last page of the novel or after the credits at the end of the movie. Like many other espionage writers, as well as like the secret services described in his novels, John le Carre had to look for new enemies after the break-up of the Iron Curtain and the fall of communism. In his novels after 1990, the role of the ‘bad guys’ began to be played by global terrorists or mafias in former communist countries. But the last decade has also meant the return of Russia on the global scene and the threat of a new Cold War. ‘Our Kind of Traitor‘ published in 2011 is John le Carre’s first novel in which the signs of the new Cold War appear. The 2016 movie directed by Susanna White is a pretty faithful adaptation of the novel.
Two categories of typical le Carre heroes appear in this film. Perry (Ewan McGregor ) is an idealist intellectual who is ready to sacrifice the his peaceful life to help a friend or serve a good cause when confronted with limit situations. Hector (Damian Lewis) is an MI6 agent who faces the eternal problem of corruption and duplicity of his bosses and has to resort to unconventional methods to bring the truth to light. The two will meet when Perry is chosen by a financier of the Russian mafia named Dima (the Swedish actor Stellan Skarsgård ) to facilitate his passage to the English side with his whole family. It is not the most complex and interesting of the novels written by John le Carre, but the story has enough material for an exciting action thriller.
Susanna White has little experience with feature films, being especially known for directing episodes in TV series. Her lack of experience or inspiration is visible in this adaptation, correct but lacking in emotion. There were some exciting action threads that could have been exploited – such as the dilemmas of the British agent confronted with the corruption of politicians and the bosses’ complicity, the relationship between Perry and his wife faced with the dilemma of personal sacrifice in order to help a dubious friend that he had just known, or the terror of the family of the Russian bankerwho had decided to change allegiances. None of these topics is approached more than at a superficial level, to the extent that they serve the action. The only interesting acting is by Stellan Skarsgård . ‘Our Kind of Traitor‘ is an acceptable action movie, but the impression I was left with was that it could have been more than that.