Our kind of Traitor

Not my kind of movie but still a good one.

Based on a book that I never read and probably will never read, Ewan McGregor plays a college professor on holiday as they say in Britain with his wife, Naomie Harris, who befriends a Russian mob accountant, played by Stellan Skarsgård, that entrust him with a thumb drive to give to MI:6 when he gets home. Handing this info over was not as simple as he thought (it’s funny that he thought it would be) and the next thing you know an agent going rogue, played by Damion Lewis has all of them neck deep in an espionage mission to get the accountants family out of danger, while taking down some heavy hitters connected to the mafia.

I think I would have preferred something a little more action packed than what was laid out for me. It had the potential to be that in your face thrill ride typical with a lot of movies, but that would have not been as realistic as My Kind of Traitor is .

For the most part everyone in the movie were some average dull people just put in a highly unlikely situation, and it was done with that kind of tone in mind.

Despite this, I thought the movie was great for what it was. The story is pretty easy to follow and you never get lost or confused. Plus nothing ever keeps you hanging for too long to the point where I’m too bored to keep watching. It moves along with a nice flow.

But what really makes this movie special is the actors in it. My personal fav is Stellan Skarsguard, who I always confuse with his son Alexander, who’s playing Tarzan in the Legend of Tarzan that came out this week as well. Papa Skarsguard plays a man who handles the money for the Russian mob. It’s a very good character played by a great actor. Charming is the best word to describe it. My kind of Traitor also sounds like a comedy and this Russian dude could have fit into that type of movie as well.

Ewan McGregor is the lead protagonist in this film and acts as a straight man for Skarsguard’s charm. The film deals a lot with the developing relationship between these two characters with McGregor’s character, Perry growing as a person throughout the movie as he learns what type of man he really is. I like how subtle all of it came up. It was not force on us but just a natural thing.

I wish that Naomie Harris was a little more centered in the film. She seemed like such a big part of the movie yet her character goes nowhere. Not even with Naomie as Gail’s interactions with her husband, Perry. Gail and Perry were having trouble in their marriage, which was the first thing we learned about them, but it rarely got too involved, just involved enough to motivate Perry to need some time away and thus how he ran into the accountant. It’s too bad as it seems like a sub plot.

Damien Lewis plays a great spy in the movie. I heard he was up to be the next Bond. Well… this movie was not a great resume for 007. The spy work more resembled a lawyer working on a court case than jet setting playboy, but you never know.

Well anyway, I may have painted a really dull picture of Our Kind of Traitor , but it was that quiet subtlety made the actor’s performances stand out and the story interesting.