Espionage films are usually portrayed as dark, alarming, possibilities of what could happen given certain situations that could explode if not reached in a specific way by a certain time period. As with the case of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy", this is still the same formula.
It's the early 70's during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control (John Hurt), resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes awry. From this point, Control believed one of four senior figures, Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) in the service was in fact a mole; a Russian agent-- and the Hungary operation an attempt to identify which one of them it was.
George Smiley (Gary Oldman) had been forced into retirement by the exiting of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by a rogue agent, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), that there was a mole. Smiley concludes the failure of the Hungary operation and the success of Operation Witchcraft (a source of significant Soviet Intelligence) confirms this, and starts the process of finding him. Through the assistance of Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley obtains information that eventually leads him to Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), the agent at the core of the Hungary fiasco. At this point, the domino effect starts happening.
Others to round out the cast are Kathy Burke as Connie Sachs, Stephen Graham as Jerry Westerby, and Simon McBurney as Oliver Lacon.
This was intensely directed by Tomas Alfredson ("Kontorstid" '03, "Four Shades of Brown" '04, "Let the Right One In" '08). The way he kept your attention with the pacing, the grittiness, the way he just let the story build gave this film a sense of reality. The culprit here was in the writing which was penned by Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan based on a novel by John le Carre. I'm sure the novel was much better in that le Carre is a consummate novelist. The script had a tendency to meander slightly and the plot also jumped around a bit. The two are not unknowns, but I guess everyone has their off projects. I feel I've seen this film in too many other films of the same genre, meaning it's nothing I haven't really seen before.
Where this film actually excels is in the acting, especially Oldman. This man did not have a lot of dialogue to play with which I'm sure was purposed, but his expressions simply spoke volumes. This takes a truly talented actor to pull this off. While the cast were very credible in their roles, Oldman will definitely be the one nominated come Oscar time.
If you like fine acting with a gritty, dark feel to a film, you'll revel with this film. It's just a shame that the script couldn't have matched the same quality. You be the judge!
Out of 4 stars: 3 Rated: R 127min.
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