TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY
R
127 Minutes
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Writers: Bridget O'Connor (screenplay), Peter Straughan (screenplay), John le Carré (novel)
Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Toby Jones
Cast
Gary Oldman ... George Smiley
Toby Jones ... Percy Alleline
John Hurt ... Control
Mark Strong ... Jim Prideaux
Zoltán Mucsi ... Magyar
Ilona Kassai ... Woman in Window
Imre Csuja ... KGB Agent
David Dencik ... Toby Esterhase
Ciarán Hinds ... Roy Bland
Colin Firth ... Bill Haydon
John Le Carre, author of novel for which this film is based. Le Carre a former spy himself, wrote many espionage novels; his style focuses more on realism.
British Spy movies are hardly ever realistic.
James Bond — Johnny English — Austin Powers.
None of these characters are in this film.
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Or the actors that portray them:
Daniel Craig — Rowan Atkinson — Mike Myers,
respectively.
As a profession, espionage demands a level of secrecy, deception, and telling bold-faced lies.
The Secret Intelligence Service is run by power-hungry, amoral men; deception is their chosen profession. Many an evil deed has been committed by paper pushers. Yes, bureaucrats can kill more than just your valuable time.
The BBC TV series is 290 minutes. Moves incredibly slow, by today's standards. Featuring, Alex Guinness and Patrick Steward. For the 'dorkus malorkus'; you may know them as 'Obi-Wan Kenobi' and 'Captain Jean-Luc Picard', commander of the USS Enterprise (NCC-1701-D).
...word is you are the best.
-The Specialist (1994)
George Smiley is called back from retirement. Yes, Gary "the old-man' Oldman must come back, revisit his old profession, and bust some heads. Oh yeah... and this time it's personal.
To summarize the film most simply: a colleague of George is a mole, his job is to uncover who that mole actually is.
I haven't said much about the plot. This is because I don't completely understand the course of events. Nonetheless, I enjoyed watching it. To find a movie that doesn't insult my intelligence, is ever-so-rare. I would recommend paying close attention to details, because much has been trimmed from the source material. You might take away more from this film than I have.
Final Verdict: 85 out of 100
Sidenote:
Doesn't George Smiley (Oldman) look like the
dad from Alf (Wright). Additionally, he looks
like Mr. Bone from DOUG.