It’s a story as old as time: Teacher and spouse go on romantic vacation. Teacher meets gregarious foreigner. Foreigner turns out to be high-ranking Russian mobster who passes teacher a flash drive containing the names of British officials in the pocket of criminals, and teacher is pulled into a web of intrigue, spying, and top-secret adventure. (Pretty sure this was the plot of Ovid’s Tristia.) In this case, it happens to be an upcoming film based on John Le Carre’s novel Our Kind Of Traitor.
Ewan McGregor and Naomie Harris (a.k.a. Moneypenny from the new Bond films) play the couple in question, on vacation in Marrakech when a mysterious man (Stellan Skarsgård) takes a shine to them. Soon enough, it’s revealed that the man launders money for the Russian mafia, and he asks McGregor’s teacher to deliver classified information to British intelligence. Co-starring Damian Lewis and Mark Gatiss (Sherlock), the film looks to be a more amphetamine-laced version of the author’s usual “who can you trust?” machinations, aided by a script from Hossein Amini (Drive) and helmed by Susanna White (Generation Kill).
Our Kind Of Traitor opens in the U.K. on May 6, and the U.S. on July 1.