‘Our Kind Of Traitor’ BluRay Review: A Thriller With Few Thrills

It appears the month of November is uInterview’s espionage-thriller month, because Our Kind of Traitor is another movie worth your time and consideration. Only, its strong beginning and soundtrack doesn’t support the rest of the movie, it leaves you wanting more.

Opening up with a male ballet dancer moving in slow motion to depressing music, you can logically expect that the next scene will involve a man talking about how his father hit him. A man walks in presenting a gun to another man in Moscow, meeting Anna and Olga, names just in case you somehow forgot this took place in Russia. The next scene has Anna’s parents driving in their car, people talking in Russian without subtitles, before a man kills them all to get the gun the other man was given.

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The main character is Perry (Ewan McGregor), who is refused sex. He and Naomie (Gail Perkins), go to dinner before Naomie leaves. A friendly Russian man tries to get him loose, eventually bringing him to a Russian party by winning a bet involving remembering his credit card number. He talks to Maria, who he has a very romantic moment with, but turns back to his stick in the mud ways almost immediately. He, now heavily intoxicated, attempts to stop a rape in the bathroom. The man from before, Dima, saves him and the girl.

On the way back, he tells him to watch out for tattooed men, as the man from last night was a killer in the Russian mafia. Dima tells a story about a time he killed his KGB-agent father for raping his mother. The next scene involves everyone gawking at Naomie, who is black, the two little girls she talks to state that they are orphans. So far: a really lighthearted, funny movie. Perry and the Dima play tennis together while Naomie watches, and Naomie is hesitant to come to Dima’s daughter’s birthday. As Naomie plays hide and seek with two little girls, he catches Perry talking with Maria. Perry is then asked by Dima to give a message to people in London, as he cannot trust any of the natives here in the Russia; the mafia is everywhere. He agrees.

After Naomie reprimands him for following Maria, both are put into questioning when he submits the memory stick Dima gave him. The man from questioning views the video stored in the memory stick, which is footage of the Prince at a party. Professor Perry lectures, but is interrupted by this man, and they try to convince them to get involved. They do so, and are loudly welcomed by Dima at an art gallery in France, making plans for the next day.

They meet there, in the showers, and Dima gives another memory stick of information to the international affairs guy who analyzed the stick from before, Hector. There is a game of tennis, where tense music plays but nothing happens. After they return, Hector talks to Dima. Dima tries to get Hector to help him, but Hector does nothing, as usual. Meanwhile, some bald guy is suspicious of Naomie.

Their driver doesn’t take them to the hotel, rather they are taken downtown. The driver, after going inside, is holding a baby and tells them to come inside. A very strange, wide living room filled with people, is there as he watches the game. There is a tense scene, and one of the driver’s friends kicks a girl in the face for spilling tea on him. Perry flips out and forces the driver to call for an ambulance.

Meeting with Hector, once again he says he is unable to do anything. Hector needs the account numbers, yet Dima wants his family to be let out of the country. Hector meets with them on the train and says how he has a son, too, and wants the family to live. Good for you, Hector, you have basic human morals. What amazing progress we’re all making. Dima meets with the Prince and begins to transfer the accounts. Meanwhile, Naomie and Perry are on the move while Hector calls them on his bed. Scratch what I said before.

Dima’s pen doesn’t work, and the man who kicked the girl in the face hands Dima his pen. The Prince wants to tell the story where his father hit him again alongside the gun, but Dima tells a different story, where the Prince cried because he couldn’t kill an animal, so Dima had to kill it for him. Hector tells him to move while the Arena Bank make a speech about its success. Naomie and Perry rescue the children from what I can only assume is a Mac screensaver display room. Dima goes for a piss while Dima tricks the driver from before, fighting him in the kitchen and eventually attempting to choke him to death. Once saving Dima, they head out on the highway.

Hector effectively screws everyone over by having never scheduled a plane, even though there are planes literally everywhere around them. They could literally just take one and deal with the legal consequences later. They are all idiots, it’s obvious now. They decide to take the highway to London, resting in the French Alps. Hector walks in to threaten a French politician in his home, cursing and threatening his life in front of his child, eating his cheese on the way out.

A star-crossed lover, one of Dima’s kids, reveals their location overnight to his KGB boyfriend. As Hector negotiates/yells at other people, Perry lets Dima know that there will be a helicopter to pick him up next morning. Dima asks, “I have f*cked up your life, professor, why are you still here?” to which Perry replies “I have no idea.”

Dima’s crappy daughter tells Dima she is pregnant with her lover’s kid, Dima punches her, and she says Dima can’t even protect his family before leaving, her boyfriend on their tail. The family takes to arms, and Perry rescues Dima in the woods, with nobody dead. Dima leaves, but Perry stays with the family. Dima immediately dies when the helicopter explodes. His wife and family grieve. How will this plot conclude within the next 10 minutes?

Why, with the success of the new Arena Bank, the guys who killed the only interesting character. Perry and Naomie walk home to London before visiting Hector at his home cooking for himself. Hector compliments Perry and they drink liquor before talking about how the family is fine. Perry gives Hector a black box containing the gun Dima stole from the Prince. Hector takes the gun and sees a note in it, containing the account numbers. Dima’s voice reads off the numbers on the page, just as he did with Perry’s credit card number. Perry is seen in a crowd, looking to the camera and walking away.

The actor who played Dima, Stellan Skarsgård, carries the entire movie with his cursing and overall gruff yet lovable attitude, however stereotypically Russian it may be. Perry is a knight in shining armor so illogical it gets obnoxious. Character development is light, and scenes that are supposed to be tense have little to no interesting features whatsoever. The music being the only saving grace as absolutely nothing happens in any “tense” scene. The only emotions I had to certain characters was a small dislike of some, but otherwise I felt next to nothing for the cast. There were no consequences for the entire cast; nobody we cared about died. Would I ever watch this again? Not a chance. Our Kind of Traitor is a thriller, but it’s not thrilling in the slightest. It shocks you in the beginning with rape before repeating concepts as bland as Mom’s chicken noodle soup. The special features include deleted scenes, the making of, cast interviews, and analysis of the story. If you need to watch a thriller, buy the Blu-Ray, but don’t expect the powerful strong beginning to venture into uncharted territories.