Time Out London by Dave Calhoun

Once you get past some bumps in the road of believability, Our Kind of Traitor turns into a brisk, energetic drama, with Anthony Dod Mantle’s photography adding interesting layers to a fairly straightforward plot.

Arizona Republic by Randy Cordova

Director Susanna White keeps things low-key and absorbing, as the action moves from Marrakesh to London to Paris to Switzerland.

Entertainment Weekly by Leah Greenblatt

The film, while gorgeously shot, is schematic and wholly implausible. But Skarsgård saves it; wild and funny and ferociously alive, he’s a crucial bolt of color in all that tasteful gray.

Rolling Stone by Peter Travers

No knock on McGregor and Harris — fine actors both — but they never hold us rapt the way the plot demands.

Christian Science Monitor by Peter Rainer

Which is not to say the movie is anything less than diverting. It’s just that diverting is often all it is.

The A.V. Club by Jesse Hassenger

Director Susanna White, on only her second feature, jazzes up the proceedings to match the skill of actors like McGregor, Harris, and Skarsgård. Most notable is her smart use of cinematographer Anthony Dod Mantle.

Slant Magazine by Oleg Ivanov

It works as both a modern morality play for our globalized world and as an indictment of Europe's ethical bankruptcy.

Washington Post by Michael O'Sullivan

There’s little of the poetry that Perry teaches in the script, but the story’s mechanics are solid.

Chicago Tribune by Michael Phillips

I don't the think the "look" is quite right for the story. Nor is the dreamy, wandering score by Marcelo Zarvos, which adds the blandest sort of ambient "tension music" to whatever's going on. McGregor struggles to make Perry credible in his credulousness; Harris, far better, doesn't have enough to do; Skarsgard is fun.

The Globe and Mail (Toronto) by Brad Wheeler

Scratch off Lewis as a contender for the new Bond actor. As for McGregor, he may have failed his audition as well. Our Kind of Traitor is tense enough, but lacks lustre and pizzazz. Perhaps a better-utilized Harris could have popped things up.

Screen Daily by Fionnuala Halligan

While McGregor and Harris convincingly portray a couple in trouble, and Lewis’s odball spook is an uneasy fit, it is Skarsgard’s dynamic performance which saves the day.

The New Yorker by Anthony Lane

Indeed, the whole film is oddly poised between the pensive and the peevish, with a topdressing of high jinks.

The Hollywood Reporter by Leslie Felperin

Although engaging enough to hold interest, the just slightly off casting of Ewan McGregor and Stellan Skarsgard...dampens plausibility.

The Guardian by Mike McCahill

Director Susanna White favours a generic spy-movie look: those chilly blue filters surely need resting now. Yet she works smartly with her actors: while Skarsgård wolfs down great handfuls of scenery, McGregor effectuates a thoughtful transformation from ineffectual tourist to man in the field.

Empire by Dan Jolin

A lesser entry in the LeCarré Cinematic Universe, though Damian Lewis and Stellan Skarsgård rescue it from complete blandness.

CineVue by Jamie Neish

It's a finely made thriller that's a little bit more contemporary than other le Carré adaptations before it, and allows the central trio a chance to shine and Lewis to do some weird things with his accent and mouth as a weirdly laid back and unconcerned British agent.

Variety by Peter Debruge

The shattering of one’s noble ideals is a delicate thing to capture on film, and White plays the moment of rupture with a banality that threatens to undermine our faith in her as storyteller more than in the system itself.

Screen International by Fionnuala Halligan

While McGregor and Harris convincingly portray a couple in trouble, and Lewis’s odball spook is an uneasy fit, it is Skarsgard’s dynamic performance which saves the day.

The Telegraph by Tim Robey

It’s a film whose final shape feels dwindled by compromise – not unappealing, but stymied, like a luxury jet which spends two hours taxiing on the runway.