‘Our Kind of Traitor’: Foreign intrigue heats up in a slow burn

“Our Kind of Traitor” is built on a familiar premise, but it sure is a sturdy one. Imagine you’re an average Joe who stumbles into a situation full of danger and intrigue. How do you react? And, more importantly, are you up to the challenge?

That’s what happens to Perry (Ewan McGregor), a rather frayed British professor vacationing with his wife in Marrakesh. It’s not a particularly happy trip. Gail (Naomie Harris) is a successful lawyer who can’t leave work behind. Perry is frustrated by his career and recently ended a fling with one of his students. The two seem to exist in silence, with tiny drops of conversation scattered in between.

One night, Gail leaves Perry behind in a restaurant to take a phone call. He strikes up a conversation with Dima (Stellan Skarsgård), a big, bearish Russian in a leather jacket. Dima is friendly and jovial, sure, but he’s also vaguely threatening. Still, the two hit it off. Soon, Perry is partying with Dima, snorting cocaine and eyeing prostitutes, including one whom he defends from an attacker.

Dima, impressed by Perry’s surprising vigor, has a proposal for the dispirited professor. He reveals that he’s the top money launderer for the Russian mob, and now he fears for his safety. He wants Perry to take a USB drive to British intelligence. On the memory stick is information that links a British politico (Jeremy Northam) and other VIPs to the mob. Dima wants to spill the beans; in exchange, he wants to defect, along with his family.

Does Perry take the bait? Well, it would be a short film if he didn’t. But in this slow-burn thriller, adapted from a 2010 book by John le Carré, the intrigue comes as Perry and Gail are pulled deeper into the quagmire. Gail, in particular, is presented with a compelling situation. Logically, she knows she should bolt, but she’s also concerned about the fate of Dima’s family, including two orphaned twins who have come under his care. That gives her an idea of the kind of forces they are dealing with.

Director Susanna White keeps things low-key and absorbing, as the action moves from Marrakesh to London to Paris to Switzerland. The movie doesn’t boast the travelogue flair those locations suggest, though there is an effectively sinister sequence set against a French housing project, which isn’t a typical movie setting.

McGregor and Harris are both good, and it’s interesting to see how their relationship shifts as they are drawn further into Dima’s situation. McGregor, disheveled and more low-key than usual, seems perfectly benevolent, and one anxiously awaits his reactions, though le Carré may have overplayed his hand when he gave the character the last name of Makepeace.

Skarsgård, covered in a road map of tattoos, is riveting, offering a character that doesn’t really recall anything else he’s done. Dima is brutish and physical, but he’s also a devoted family man. It’s a well-rounded performance, and it has to be: After all, he has to be charismatic to inspire these characters to risk so much.

★★★

Roadside Attractions and Lionsgate present a film directed by Susanna White and written by Hossein Amini, based on the novel by John le Carré. Running time: 107 minutes. Rated R (for violence, profanity, nudity, drug use and sexuality.). Opens Friday at local theaters.