Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

12/25/2014

The russians have placed a mole within the Circus (who is the british intelligence service, by the way). George Smiley (Gary Oldman), having been fired from the Circus, has now been rehired (secretly) to find the mole. He assembles his small team and begins to look into the matters. The possibilities are plenty, Percy (Toby Jones), Esterhase (David Dencik), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). His old friend, Control (John Hurt), even suspected George himself of being the mole. This movie is directed by a personal favorite of mine, Tomas Alfredson, who also created the vampire movie, _Let the Right One In_ (Lad den rette komme ind), as well as the amazing, _Four Shades of Brown_ (fire nuancer af brun). He is a master of creating a dark and mysterious atmosphere, and d

9/5/2020

Great cast, nice cinematography and a fascinating plot. <em>'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'</em> is very much a slow burn but it's worth it at the end, even if I wouldn't describe the premise as unpredictable - it isn't predictable per se, I just can't say I was majorly surprised at what occurs that's all. It's not as complicated as the film suggests I feel, that's not a criticism but I'm just saying if I wrote down what I thought was going to happen at the start and checked it at the end, I'd be mostly right - at least with an outline. That's not me being big headed, I just feel it throws a lot of false curve balls to go around the houses a tad. The only part, to be honest, I didn't fully get while watching was the Polyakov bits. All the cast give excellent performances, with Gary Ol

6/18/2022

**Despite a great cast and good script material, the film is tiring, stagnant, a bit gray and boring to watch.** This film is a remake of an older film from 1973 (I haven't seen it yet, but I intend to), both of which are film adaptations of a spy novel that was written by John Le Carrée. Being the original story known for its quality and this film being an elaborate super production and with a cast full of established names, I was expecting a great film… but the truth is that I felt disappointed in that expectation. The movie is not as interesting and good as I would have liked. In fact, the film has a lot of well-known actors, with the strongest and most impactful performance given to us by an experienced Gary Oldman. The actor regained his native English accent and was able to mas

7/22/2022

Many folks will remember the wonderful BBC adaptation of this John Le Carré story that featured the late Sir Alec Guinness as the measured and sagely "George Smiley" character. This time, this almost as superior adaptation places an on-form Gary Oldman in that role. What role? Well having just been pensioned off, he is re-recruited by "C" (John Hurt) to try and track down a KGB spy deep within the fabric of MI6. It's fair to say that, as this story starts to unfold, we discover there are plenty of suspects and the classily written story bombards us with characterful and suspicious scenarios that might be true, might be half-true, or might just be genuine red herrings! A formidable cast of British stalwarts add richness to this complex but not convoluted tale of deceit and betrayal. Tom Har