Movie #568 ........................."Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy"

Movie #568 "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is a very detailed complicated story that I'm not convinced could be told in a 2 hour + film. It was a long book, that was made into a miniseries in the past (with Alex Guiness) and now becomes an academy award nominee vehicle for Gary Oldman, whom I think was better as Sirius Black in the Harry Potter series. In fact, he doesn't say a word for the first 30 minutes of the film, and seems terribly British and unflappable in the rest of it. Too many names, too much happening, that after awhile we don't really care. We know there's a double agent (what spy story doesn't have that) and the way it is played out, is not all that different from many of the other movies on the subject. What struck me is that I think the US does better with its espionage films --- we do it at a quicker pace, and they are more gimmicky in keeping our attention. The Brits seem to think you can talk to death the spies and they will consider that torture and give up. I enjoyed watching Colin Firth in his first movie role since winning the academy award and he definitely added to the movie. Otherwise, didn't need to see it on the big screen.





3 stars out of 5
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy
(2011) R
John Le Carré's classic thriller of Cold War espionage follows an English spy as he returns to MI-6 under a cloud of suspicion. In the years since he was sacked by the agency, some suspect he's become an operative for the Soviet Union.
Genre:Thrillers, British Movies, Spy Thrillers, British Thrillers
This movie is:Cerebral, Understated