Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

ATTENTION: MOVIE SPOILERS INCLUDED!! DON’T READ THIS IF YOU ARE ON YOUR WAY TO THE THEATRE TO SEE THIS MOVIE!!!

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

January 7 2012

My first movie of the New Year!

My opinion:

3.5 out of 5 bags of popcorn for the overall movie

3.5 out of 5 boxes of milk duds for my personal entertainment

My suggestion: Wait for the DVD

The gist: This movie takes place in the early 1970’s during the cold war. Control, the alias for the head of the British Intelligence, resigns following an operation to expose a mole in his agency that goes very wrong. The agent he assigned to the mission is shot and taken as prisoner in Budapest. Smiley, a top agent (Gary Oldman) is also forced into retirement but he begins to investigate the story of a possible mole in the agency. As he digs deeper using information he obtains covertly he finds the missing agent that was shot in Budapest and begins to unravel a plot involving 4 of the top men in the agency. One of them is the mole and Smiley sets up a brilliant trap to catch the mole in the act. In the end, Smiley is reappointed as head of the agency, and the mole gets what he deserves.

The best part of this movie is the casting. All the characters are perfectly cast and Gary Oldman absolutely steals the show. His performance is incredible!! I love the way this movie was filmed, you really felt like you are being transported back to the 1970’s. The haircuts and clothing are RAD!! The name of the movie, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, also plays into the plot very well.

The first 45 minutes of the movie is VERY slow and intense. It gets much more interesting once you start finding out more details surrounding the mole and the agent that was taken prisoner in Budapest. I see tons of movies and consider myself very skilled at reading plot lines and finding the hidden details in a film, but this one was a bit of a head scratcher for me. There were so many characters to keep track of and after a time they all begin to blend together. I also lost track of the good guys and the bad guys and even now I am sure I got them all right. The meticulous information surrounding the search for the mole is somewhat exhausting.

What pissed me off about this movie is you literally sit through over an hour and a half of vital plot information and the introduction of character after character only to lead you to an underwhelming conclusion. The mole ends up being exactly who you thought it was going to be and there is no side plot. That is it. You find the mole the mystery is solved. There is one problem with this, however, we as movie goers today expect a little more than an ending that we guessed half way through the film. I am all fine and good with guessing an ending of a film, as long as I didn’t have to endure over an hour of material leading up to the conclusion. I wish there would have been more of a surprise at the ending and that is why I suggested the wait for DVD on this. If you like Gary Oldman, then I would definitely go to the theatre……if you are one of his fans; his performance alone is worth the price of admission.