Our Kind of Traitor

As a huge fan of John Le Carre (I've read all of his books), I have been looking forward to the movie adaptation of Our Kind of Traitor for weeks.  I saw it Friday afternoon and it is pretty good with only a few minor deviations from the book.  Perry Makepeace (Ewan McGregor) and his wife Gail (Naomie Harris) are on vacation in Marrakesh trying to salvage their marriage when they cross paths with Dima (Stellan Skarsgard) who purports to be a money launderer with the Russian mafia.  He has sensitive information about British nationals who have ties to the Russian mafia and asks Perry to give this information to MI6 because he fears for his life.  Perry agrees and eventually meets with an agent named Hector (Damian Lewis) in London.  Hector has bad blood with an MP who is one of the British nationals implicated by Dima's information.  Hoping to get revenge, Hector sends Perry and Gail on an unsanctioned mission to get proof from Dima who will only cooperate if his family is granted asylum in England.  The tension mounts as Perry and Gail race from Paris, to Switzerland, and the French Alps as they try to protect Dima and his family.  I thought it was incredibly suspenseful and much of the suspense comes from the fact that you don't really know who you can trust.  Both Skarsgard and Lewis (I like him in just about everything he does) give great performances as the larger than life mobster and the devious agent, respectively.  When I first saw the previews for this movie, I thought that Ewan McGregor was entirely miscast as an academic who is bullied into a situation for which he is ill-equipped (I always think of him as the cocky, devil-may-care Alex from Shallow Grave).  But he almost seems diminished in his portrayal of a man caught up in events beyond his control (I had to look up how tall he is because I thought he looked so small and vulnerable on screen).  His characterization is spot-on and I found him to be very compelling as Perry.  This movie felt very Hitchcockian (including a very interesting McGuffin) which is always a good thing in my opinion.   I love spy movies (cliches and all) and I recommend this movie to other fans of the genre.