'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' review

Gary Oldman (Credit: Jack English/Focus)

related items

'The Devil Inside' review

Satan wouldn't want any part of this

Metromix picks: Best new movies

All the recent recommended releases

It’s 1973 and Britain’s Secret Intelligence Service, code-named the Circus, is firmly entrenched in the Cold War. When field agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) uncovers information suggesting there’s a mole in the Circus, reluctantly retired agent George Smiley (Gary Oldman) gets called in to investigate the primary suspects: his former colleagues (Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Ciarán Hinds and David Dencik). Teamed with a brash young agent (Benedict Cumberbatch), the quietly persistent Smiley faces down professional and personal demons from his past and present.

The buzz: Widely considered a masterpiece of the spy genre, John le Carré’s 1974 novel “Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy” was previously adapted into a celebrated 1979 miniseries starring Alec Guinness, but never a feature film. Enter Swedish director Tomas Alfredson—hot off the international success of vampire film “Let the Right One In”—to bring a “Tinker, Tailor” script adapted by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan to the big screen. After a successful premiere at the Venice Film Festival, the result is already a box office hit in the U.K.

The verdict: Blurring the line between intricate and convoluted, the dazzling spy games of “Tinker, Tailor” remain magnetic even at their most mysterious. Alfredson’s style is so seductive—mesmerizing camerawork, meticulous production design, a hypnotic original score—that you’re just as likely to get lost in the film’s technique as you are in Smiley’s investigation. Although the exploration of secrets and lies makes many of the characters elusive by design, the superb cast brings to life the savvy power players inside the Circus as well as the wounded refugees no longer living in the shadows. In a portrait of espionage as melancholy as it is paranoid, Smiley emerges as the anti-James Bond. Expertly played by Oldman, he’s not a flashy super agent but a brainy, nearly invisible, spook who knows how to stay under the radar, ask exactly the right questions, and close the case. Hardy’s Tarr provides the more romantic vision of undercover life via his ill-fated affair with an alluring Soviet operative (Svetlana Khodchenkova), and he’s only one of several vividly rendered supporting players. From Firth’s smooth power player to Jones’ weasely head honcho, Kathy Burke’s regretful retiree to Mark Strong’s disregarded company man, each performer lends a specific flavor to inform and enhance the overall picture. “Tinker, Tailor” looks back at a time often viewed as black and white and colors it in endlessly captivating shades of grey.

Did you know? Co-screenwriter O’Connor passed away shortly before filming began and the finished work is dedicated to her memory.

Movie Trailer: