Oldman is a master thespian in this top notch crafty spy vs. spy thriller bar-none

Rating: 9/10 (10 January 2012)

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (2011) ***1/2 Gary Oldman, Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Ciaran Hinds, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney, Mark Strong. Oldman delivers a masterful, crafty performance as career British spy George Smiley whose old-school smarts are enlisted to thrush out a mole amongst his conniving den of thieves colleagues while investigating the death of his mentor and the unraveling of a botched assignment with lethal ripples of espionage gone awry. Based on the international best seller by John la Carre, the tightly wound, knotty crackerjack screenplay adaptation by Peter Straughan and his late wife Bridget O'Connor serves up some classic turns of the screws, cloak-and-dagger genre chestnuts while keeping the audience lively (a few scattered moments of very real violence inflicted) thanks largely to Tomas Alfredson's taut direction, expert cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema (the drab palette of muted greys/blues/browns expertly show a Europe in the dark in its Cold War era) and impeccable production design by Maria Djkorvic with crisp editing by Dino Junsater. But it is hats off to the very lived-in, implosive, internally observant Oscar-worthy turn by veteran Oldman (with a nice tribute to previous role interpreter the late, great Sir Alec Guinness by employing the old master's plummy vocalizations and the owlish specs), whose very stillness only betrays the villainy at hand. Top Notch!