Critics are crazy. I totally missed the boat on this one. Perhaps what they were selling was so secret that I didn’t know where to buy it. A mission goes wrong and a spy is shot and presumably killed, but we find out later that he was just wounded. He was tortured (which we don’t see) by bad guys until he gave up all the secrets. They release him and he comes home and teaches at the local private school.
The spy leader and Smiley, Gary Oldman, are summarily fired over the botched mission. But Smiley doesn’t give up. He solves the whole deal on his chess board at home. He has a flunky go do all his evidence gathering for him, so he’s never in peril. SPOILER ALERT: Smiley solves the mystery - it’s Colin Firth (Bill) the only bad guy without a code name. My recollection is that he had about five minutes in the film total until he is found out at the end. Smiley takes Control.
This is a Cold War spy movie - spy is in the title. The characters have nicknames - the nicknames are also conveniently in the title Tinker, Tailor and Soldier. Actually, everything had a code name. Spy headquarters - the Circus. Spy leader - Control. The mission - Witchcraft.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a snoozer. The grainy film texture (sort of like the poster) is distracting. Perhaps the director, Tomas Alfredson, was trying to give it that 1960‘s feel - it didn’t work. There are too many long walks without purpose. No conflict. Little action. And as I noted earlier, Oldman’s character never risks anything. Tinker is a stinker, one of five airplanes.
1 comment:
I agree, it's a snoozer. The trailer was more exciting than the movie. For the trailer they took five interesting moments (unfortunately the ONLY interesting moments) in the movie to fool you into giving up your cold, hard cash to see this dud. I fell asleep 3X during the movie, and I love movies and NEVER fall asleep. B-O-R-I-N-G....ZZZZZZ
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