Our Kind of
Traitor
(2016)
(SPOILERS)
In which a poetry teacher with a hitherto untapped capacity for derring-do
takes up arms against a sea of Russian
mobsters, and by opposing ends (some of) them. Our Kind of Traitor, the latest John Le Carré adaptation derives from of one of his later novels (first published in 2010),
and one gets a sense that, the further the author strays from first-hand
knowledge and experience, the less effective his yarn spinning becomes.
Certainly,
tackling the War on Terror in A Most
Wanted Man made for a well-mounted but rather passé picture. In contrast.
The sophisticated arms dealer of The
Night Manager proved highly effective and fertile ground, but that novel
was penned more than two decades ago, which may help explain its relative verisimilitude.
Our Kind of Traitor finds Le Carré exploring Russian thugs buying legitimacy via the keepers of the
British establishment, but is propelled by the most unlikely of Hitchcockian
everymen, consequently struggling to balance its serious-mindedness with a Man Who Knew Too Much/ North by Northwest “Who knew?” resourceful
protagonist.
However, if
this is a core weakness in the scenario, its servicing by director Susanna
White (best known for her TV work, from BBC prestige adaptions such as Bleak House and Parade’s End to HBO’s Generation
Kill and Boardwalk Empire) is always
highly accomplished. She proves particularly adept at the subjective
experience, from an early interlude with Ewan McGregor’s (poetics lecturer) Perry
Makepeace in Marrakech, as he gets progressively more squiffy while attending a
depraved party with the convivial Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), Russian Mafia’s
Number One money launderer, to a later, edgy sequence in which Alec Utgoff’s
henchman stops off with Perry and his girlfriend Gail (Naomie Harris) at a block
of rundown Parisian flats to the accompaniment of inexorably building unease.
Dima, out
of desperation, has picked Perry to be his contact with British Intelligence,
his objective being safe passage for himself and his family (mostly his family)
in exchange for the lowdown on the mob money financing a newly-approved London bank,
a bank that has the endorsement of an assortment of British politicians due to
get paid handsomely for their trouble (their ill-gotten gains nestling comfortably
in those obligatory Swiss accounts).
As ever, Le
Carré’s great strength is capturing the machinations within the corridors of
power, where everyone has their own agenda, trustworthiness is foreign
territory, and corruption is rife, be it in ways large or small, to positive or
negative ends; this doesn’t manifested as cynicism on the author’s part, it’s simply
the way the world turns. We know Damien Lewis’ Hector is a good guy, but is his
quest to bring down the lynch-pin of the scheme, MP Aubrey Longrigg (Jeremy
Northam), in what becomes an unsanctioned mission, endangers everyone involved.
And can his immediate superior Matlock (Mark Gatiss, eschewing the usual RP
delivery) be trusted?
Le Carré met the inspiration for Dima in Moscow two decades before penning the
novel, but the actual chap doesn’t sound remotely as endearing as his fictional
counterpart, and much more like one of the gangsters who surround him. Skarsgård, sporting a long, flowing mane courtesy of the makeup department, is
clearly enjoying himself as Dima, an exuberant bear hug of a man treading a
precarious line of deception. He effortlessly takes charge of every scene he’s
in, be it flashing McGregor in a locker room (it used to be Ewan who did all
the flashing), beating a henchman half to death in a men’s room, or putting
young mob pretender-to-the-empire Prince (Grigoriy Dobrygin, boasting a big
bushy beard that precedes him) in his place before a room full of peers.
Lewis also commands
the attention, even if he dresses Hector like he’s just stepped out of a Harry
Palmer picture and offers an accent akin to Dickie Attenborough wrestling a
trapped Fruit Pastille.
McGregor
and Harris are less notable, at least in part because their characters are so
thin. Altruistic to a fault, they just want to help because their hearts bleed
for the kids. And because Perry feels a curious kinship for Dima. So they throw
themselves into mortal peril (and onto Hector’s team to break Dima from the mob’s
clutches) when the mission is in danger of falling apart. That Hector isn’t
going by the rule book, and that Dima has earlier insisted on their presence,
doesn’t make their embroilment any more believable.
There’s a
problem too with McGregor in the lead role, in that he has long since ceased to
surprise as an actor. I possibly have the same weakness in hoping for the best
from him as with Richard E Grant; in both cases its borne of goodwill based on
a couple of performances more than two decades ago, and neither has made much
of an impression in anything since. Ewan being so unassuming, and Perry being
so dauntless, makes for a tenuous combination; a character of unremitting
chivalry, albeit with a barely mustered skeleton in the closet, and who turns
out to have few qualms about picking off goons in the French alps on the first
occasion he picks up a gun (okay, just the one goon, but I’m sure he’d have shot
up more given half the chance).
Even given
the stretch involved, Our Kind of Traitor
proves absorbing for much of its duration, mainly thanks to White’s good work.
Right up until it looks as if they’ve got away with getting Dima et famille
away, until they haven’t. Which leads to an uninspired retreat to a shack in
the Alps, and that old chestnut of a character making a phone call that brings
the dogs running. By the looks of it, Hossein Amini (who also has adaptations
of works by Patricia Highsmith Thomas Hardy, Henry James and Elmore Leonard to
his name) could have done with being a little less faithful to the original
text, but I’m guessing that won’t happen too much now the the author’s
offspring (through their production company The Ink Factory) are shepherding
his works to the screen.
It’s
unlikely that Our Kind of Traitor
will satisfy anyone expecting another top-flight Le Carré in the wake of The
Night Manager,
although it’s definitely more audience-friendly than A Most Wanted Man. Still, the cottage industry of adaptations should keep ticking
along nicely for the time being, just as long as there are enough successes like Manager and the Gary Oldman Tinker
Tailor Soldier Spy to balance the slightly less illustrious ones. I’m not sure The Ink Factory is best placed to steer
their dad’s biopic to the screen, however; a little more distance from the
central character might be in its best interests.
Agree? Disagree? Mildly or vehemently? Let me know in the comments below.