‘Traitor’ struggles to keep the thrill alive
Mysteries have to work in two ways. They have to make us want to know what’s going on and then, this is the hard part, keep us interested after we find out.
The spy thriller “Our Kind of Traitor” gets the first half of that equation right. For almost an hour, it keeps us off balance. But once we find that balance, the movie begins to coast.
Instead of expanding, it contracts. The film becomes a small story about a handful of people, and once it slows down, we have time to notice other little problems. That is, we have time to become skeptical and wonder at the motivations of the characters. We start seeing them, not as people, but as entities being maneuvered by the demands of plot.
Still, the movie begins well, stays there for a while, and never really falls apart.
Based on the novel by John Le Carré, “Our Kind of Traitor” starts off with a couple on holiday, trying to blast through a rough patch in their relationship. In a restaurant one night, the man, Perry (Ewan McGregor), is approached by a boisterous Russian, who invites him to have a drink with his friends. The Russian (Stellan Skarsgård) is a hard guy to say no to. He’s persistent, familiar and charismatic, but with the faint hint of something unsavory and threatening about him.
Skarsgård locates his performance in that odd zone where appealing meets scary, and he’s by far the most interesting thing in the movie. McGregor, who goes through the proceedings looking like he’s slept in his clothes for a few days running, is nominally the protagonist, but his role is mostly reactive.
Naomie Harris, as his partner, Gail, has a role that’s even worse. She has to keep reacting to McGregor’s reactions — and keep resisting and then relenting as Perry is drawn further into the Russian’s circle.
The story of “Our Kind of Traitor” turns on a favor that the Russian asks Perry to do for him very early in the movie. It’s a matter of life and death, but as favors go, it’s easily done, and given the persuasiveness and engaging quality of Skarsgård’s performance, it’s very easy to believe that Perry would do it.
Still, the movie suffers from a small but nagging fault in the construction: After Perry does the one favor, there’s no reason for him to continue to be in the movie. There’s even less reason for Gail to be in it.
Of course, they’re in it — he’s the star, and she’s standing next to him — but the movie has to come up with reasons they should want to keep putting themselves in danger. The script suggests that Perry just has an exaggerated sense of duty and doesn’t care about consequences, but that’s a weak justification. That’s rather like saying, “He does these things because he’s the kind of guy who does these things.”
In any case, it’s one thing to expect an audience to worry about characters who are dragged into trouble and struggling with all their might to disentangle themselves. It’s quite another to expect us to worry over the fate of a guy who is so worked up about other people’s problems that he forgets to wash.
Such a case is not so difficult, after all. A little less altruism and a little more hygiene and he’d be fine.