Another movie playing in only a handful of theaters now but primed to expand soon. Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is based on the excellent John Le Carre book (and also the BBC miniseries based on the book) of the same name about a retired master spy named George Smiley getting asked to ferret out a traitor in the British spy service during the height of the Cold War.
What Works: As with anything based on Le Carre’s terrific books (he’s a thinking man’s spy master, with a real sense of this-is-how-it-works realism) the movie excels at realism and elaborate games-within-games (a particularly enjoyed what the mole and his Russian masters are working towards). Gary Oldman is strong as the extremely low-key spy master. The final scene brought a smile to my face.
What Doesn’t Work: I haven’t seen the five hour BBC miniseries which is supposedly excellent, but the main criticism of this movie not being long enough in comparison feels ridiculous as there’s already an easy twenty minutes that could get cut from this. The middle section is so slow burning that it’s uninvolving. Critics seem to be lapping up the obtuse plotting, yet some panned similar narratives in other movies like the vastly superior Syriana. And the big reveal of who is the mole (which the entire movie has built up to) is done in such a non-suspensful, anti-climatic way that it almost feels like a shoulder shrug. It’s as if the movie has lost interest with its only real point of interest. Also, I didn’t care for the look of this movie. It’s supposed to replicate the look of a 70’s BBC production and does that, but you know what? Those productions are dull as dirt, and it isn’t something worth replicating.
What I Would Have Done Differently: The great question remains “Why remake the miniseries at all?” Especially considering that the Cold War is over. Le Carre is still writing great, more contemporary spy novels that deal with more current topics (like “A Most Wanted Man” or “Our Kind of Traitor”). Why not make one of those into a movie instead?