As Good As It Gets

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Excellent and certainly provocative... If nothing else, the film is a real conversation starter.

Exactly the movie you think it is, but not the movie you want it to be.

Naomi Harris but it seemed the males were not vert strong personalities. It was a decent rendering then again it seemed like a contract obligation by Le Carre towards what contract he currently has with what publisher. The action wasn't the problem as much as the sub plot was bare bones.. As many have stated a fairly predictable plot. For me it was akin to 'the Night Manager' then again perhaos tis was Le Carre 'borrowing' heavily from that script to flesh out a 6 episode series for Tom Huddleston, Hugh Laurie et. al..Daniel Lewis was at his best - controlled but believable. The best rendition of a Le Carre was the old 'Tinker Tailor Solider Spy' with Alec Guiness 'because' it had the luxury of stretching out the plot over 7 episodes nearly 40 years ago (1979).

Our Kind of Traitor is a solid but dull film with a lot of foreign location shooting but it is also rather predictable.I understand that some of the people who worked on the BBC television series The Night Manager also worked in this film. Whereas the long form television series managed to maintain its tension and had several well staged set pieces throughout its running length. This was lackluster.Perry (Ewan McGregor) a lecturer and his wife Gail (Naomie Harris) a lawyer are on holiday in Marrakesh. Perry is invited to party with Dima (Stellan Skarsgård) a brash Russian who is really a financier for a Russian mobster.Dima asks for Perry's help to save his family by becoming a MI6 informant as he has information on British financiers and politicians who have laundered money for the Russian underworld. Perry needs to contact a sympathetic MI6 agent.It is well acted especially by Skarsgård but it all feels rather restraint.

College professor Perry MacKendrick (Ewan McGregor) and lawyer wife Gail are vacationing in Marrakech despite his cheating. He reluctantly accepts the mysterious Dima (Stellan Skarsgård)'s invitation to his daughter's birthday party. Dima reveals that he launders money for the Russian mob and recruits him to contact MI6 upon returning to London. British agent Hector (Damian Lewis) convinces Perry to meet up with Dima in Paris.I have trouble believing Perry would go to Paris. I have even more trouble believing that he would bring Gail. I have even more trouble believing that he would leave the museum in that guy's car. I can't explain how much trouble I have believing that he would take Gail on that trip. So it goes. It's difficult to see this every man taking obvious risks for someone he barely knows. These are big risks and worst, he's taking along his wife whom he just cheated on. There are ways to provide Perry with good personal reasons for his actions but this movie doesn't set them up. He is horribly naive. He needs to say smarter things so that he's not simply going along with Hector.This movie doesn't have the action to be thrilling. It's also not quite smart enough to be a good espionage drama. There are good aspects with some tension. The actors are all first rate. It could be rewritten with some better action set pieces to be exciting or it could elevate Hector's enemies to make a smart political espionage drama. It's not quite at that level.

'Our Kind of Traitor' should really have been my sort of movie. The acting talent utilised really is pretty impressive – Ewan McGregor, Damian Lewis and Naomi Harris all well used to turning in great performances that can lift a film. I first became aware of this film as a 'new release' on Amazon and did wonder why I'd never heard of it before. I'm guessing it was either released straight to DVD, or had such a limited cinema release that no one really heard much about it. And for a good reason, it's pretty boring.Despite the acting talent on offer, it never really gets going. A married couple (McGregor and Harris) are on a 'second honeymoon' kind of holiday where they're trying to rekindle their marriage after he had an affair with a younger woman. Once on their travels he stays out late and gets talking (and drinking) with a particularly dodgy-looking crowd of guys (who have the word 'criminal' stamped across their foreheads, in my opinion) and end up somehow being 'witnesses' for their good character during an upcoming deal for political asylum with MI6. No, seriously.Apart from how generally ludicrous this sounds, I had two problems with the story – firstly I felt there wasn't much motivation for Ewan McGregor's character to actually hook up with these dodgy guys – an action that clearly went against his attempts to patch things up with his wife. And, secondly, the main 'villain' (I'll leave it up to you to decide if they're villains or not) keeps referring to McGregor as 'Professor.' Yes, Ewan plays a university lecturer and admits this early on. It's just the guy uses it almost as a put-down, making 'the professor's' compliance in his business even less likely.Okay, so it's a little far-fetched, but Star Wars never won any points for its 'realism.' I can suspend my disbelief if what I'm seeing is vaguely interesting. And this isn't. It's not bad, it just should be more due to its actors, yet it comes across as a 'made-for-TV' movie that takes way too long to get going. It's not all bad – Damien Lewis seems to be revelling in playing a slightly smarmy MI6 agent. If you're a fan of his then you'll get a little more out of this film, otherwise… there's better on offer.