Our Kind of Traitor (film)

Plot

As part of a plan to launder billions of dollars in London, "the Prince" – the head of the Russian Mafia – creates a new bank and has its financial oligarchs sign over their accounts to him. The first oligarch to do so is murdered alongside his family by a blue-eyed assassin.

Poetics lecturer Perry MacKendrick and his barrister wife Gail are on a holiday in Morocco to try and salvage their marriage after Perry slept with one of his students. Perry strikes up a friendship with Dima, a hearty and boisterous Russian with an eidetic memory. The two men bond over drinks and tennis before Dima invites both MacKendricks to his daughter's birthday. At the birthday party, Dima gets Perry alone and gives him a USB stick that links corrupt British politicians and businessmen to the Russian mafia. He fears for his life after hearing of his fellow oligarch's fate, and pleads with Perry to turn the USB stick over to British MI6 when he returns to London.

Perry turns the information over to Hector, the investigator in charge. The information provided by Dima enables Hector and his supervisor Billy to witness a meeting between the Prince and Aubrey Longrigg, a senior politician whom Hector knows is corrupt, although he has never been able to prove it. Billy refuses to sanction an investigation on a chance meeting. Hector continues regardless and recruits the MacKendricks to help stage a chance encounter with Dima in France. There, Dima provides all the names of the corrupt, and confirms each banker and politician involved has received £5 million each for their endorsement of the new bank, with Aubrey Longrigg receiving £10 million plus an additional £20 million for every politician or banker he personally recruited to the cause. Dima refuses to provide the bank account numbers that would verify the corruption, until he and his family have been granted asylum in London.

Emilion, the Prince's consigliere, suspects the MacKendricks and has henchman Niki intimidate them by bringing them to his rough neighbourhood. Whilst there, the blue-eyed assassin beats a woman and Perry attacks him in fury. Gail is touched by her husband's protectiveness of others and their relationship begins to heal. Hector reveals to the MacKendricks that he only has two men and that he has been funding the operation himself, and they plan to seize Dima and his family simultaneously after Dima has signed the accounts over to the bank. Gail successfully retrieves Dima's wife and children, whilst Dima kills Niki before Perry can find him and bring him to safety.

Whilst at the airport with the family about to board a charter plane back to London, Billy calls Hector and informs him that Aubrey Longrigg has convinced the Home Office the family be denied asylum. With their plan thwarted, Hector must return to London alone. The MacKendricks refuse to leave Dima and the family until the asylum is granted and they are safe in London.

Given the MacKendricks' involvement, Hector sends everyone to a safehouse in the French Alps. While there, Dima's daughter blows their cover by calling one of Dima's bodyguards, Andre, by whom she is pregnant. Andre traces the location of the call and the blue-eyed assassin leads an attack on the safehouse, but it is fended off by Dima and the agents. Dima chases the blue-eyed assassin into the woods, but is ambushed and almost beaten to death before Perry arrives and kills the assassin.

Meanwhile, Hector has returned to London and attempted to convince the UK Treasury Office that the Prince's bank is a cover to launder billions of dirty Russian mafia money in London. He succeeds, but for asylum to be granted to Dima and his family, he must provide proof in the form of all the account numbers and names of the corrupt UK politicians and bankers involved in endorsing the bank - the detail that Dima still has in his head.

A deal is made that Dima must be sent onto London first via helicopter, with his family to follow once the account information he has memorised has been verified. The attack at the safe house and his wife's insistence convinces Dima to go on ahead and Perry volunteers to accompany him.

The family and Gail are driven to another safe house while Dima, Perry and Hector's agent head to the helicopter rendezvous location. At the last minute, Dima insists Perry not come with him on the helicopter. As Perry watches the helicopter take off it explodes over the Alps, killing Dima and Hector's agent and devastating the MacKendricks and Hector. All is lost.

The mafia bank opens in London and begins trading at massive profit; Aubrey Longrigg is announced as the new Minister of State for Trade and Investment.

Dima's family receives asylum after all, arranged by Hector as compensation for Dima's murder while under his protection. Perry visits Hector at home and gives him a gift from Dima, a box containing the ornate pistol that the Prince had given Dima upon the signing of the accounts. After Perry leaves, Hector finds a tiny roll of paper addressed to him from Dima with the list of all the corrupt Britons' names and account numbers hidden in the pistol's chamber. With this information, Hector is able to expose the Prince's money laundering network and the role of Longrigg and the other politicians within it.

Cast

Production

Principal photography began on 26 March 2014 and continued for ten weeks. Locations included London and its suburbs, Finland, Bern, Paris, the French Alps, and Marrakech. Le Carré was executive producer and also makes a cameo appearance in the film as an usher at Einstein Museum.

Soundtrack

Our Kind of Traitor (Original Motion Picture Soundtrack) is the soundtrack album for Our Kind of Traitor. The soundtrack album was released on 13 May 2016, by Quartet Records.

Track listing

All tracks were composed by Marcelo Zarvos, and performed by the London Metropolitan Orchestra conducted by Andrew Brown.

Release

In November 2015, Lionsgate acquired the US distribution rights to the film.

Box office

Our Kind of Traitor opened to limited release on 1 July 2016 in the US and Canada. As of 1 September 2016, it has grossed $9,419,763 worldwide.

Critical response

On review aggregator Rotten Tomatoes, Our Kind of Traitor has an approval rating of 71%, based on 126 reviews, with an average rating of 6/10. The site's critical consensus reads, "Our Kind of Traitor relies on solid writing and acting rather than action to deliver its spy-movie thrills — and thankfully has the pedigree to pull it off on both fronts." On Metacritic, the film has a score of 57 out of 100, based on 30 critics, indicating "mixed or average reviews".