Great premise, but ultimately quite a disappointment

Rating: 4/10 (9 January 2020)

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is a British film from 2011, so almost a decade old already now, and this one runs for slightly over two hours. This may sound a lot, but taking into account the original release was a miniseries back in the 1970s that ran for almost 5 hours, it puts things into perspective. I also can see why they struggle here because honestly content-wise it felt as if they weren't even close to elaborating on the characters the way they should have to make this a satisfying, let alone great, watch. Anyway, first the basics: The director is Tomas Alfredson from Sweden and I absolutely loved his earlier work "Låt den rätte komma in", which is probably still his most known work, but then this one here follows. TTSS is based on a novel by John le Carré and he was (despite his then already old age) also an executive producer for this movie, so I suppose he was happy with the outcome. At least critics liked it, more than the average imdb voter for sure. And so did awards bodies because this one was nominated for three Oscars (lead actor, score, screenplay), but it did not manage to win any. Well, I would say it did not even deserve the nominations. The screenplay nod is probably the worst (come on, it is two writers they should have seen how this went all kinds of wrong), but also Oldman was not really as good in here as he has been in other projects. I like the man and I am glad he won an Oscar, but here he was not hitting the right notes all the time. Also pretty embarrassing that I read some people say he should have won. The score nomination is maybe the only one that is not entirely undeserving. As for the cast, it is a pretty spectacular list. I will not mention them all as you can check the names out for yourself, but let me say from my subjective perspective there were actors in here I quite like (Hinds, wish he had more screen time) and others I did not like (Cumberbatch). It's maybe not the worst performance of his career, but I thought he was weak as always. Of course the script also did not do him any favors. Come on, are we really supposed to believe this weakling dares to and manages to punch a hunk like Tom Hardy. I mean Hardy was not Bane level back then yet, but still really ridiculous. As for Hardy, he was somewhat the only one I felt was a bit out of place because this is a very English movie and I mean he looks Russian, maybe French, and feels American , which is pretty strange because he is English. But I never saw him as an actor to the Crown. Still his story with the girl he falls for is among the film's better inclusions, but also really only because this film has many really weak moments and not because these scenes are particularly good.
Colin Firth is an actor I am always pretty unsure if I like him or not. He has great recognition value and this film was made right after he won his Oscar for "The King's Speech". He is okay overall I guess, but like almost everybody else in here, he does not have too much to work with. When in the end we find out he is the one they have been looking for, i.e. the rat, it went all kinds of wrong. It felt they just picked him because he is the most known cast member. And like I said neither him, nor Hinds or Jones (another actor I like) etc. get the character elaboration they deserve, so it felt like basically just the audience waiting until Oldman's lead character is kind enough to reveal the identity of the black sheep to us. Like how we find out that he knew very early who did it. But there is no audience involvement whatsoever. The character does not take us on a journey with him as he gets closer to discovering the truth. Instead we get constant character interactions that sometimes drift completely away from the subject and the script feels just so messy. This applies as well to Strong's character and his story line about seemingly being killed, then still being a major part of the film constantly. The longer it goes, the more prominently he is featured. But he adds literally nothing, be it when he kills the bird in front of all the children or bonds with one kid, who is an outsider too, only to push him away in the end. And the worst is probably his killshot at Firth' character. Now that was really when the film hit rock-bottom. I have rarely seen an ending that feels so shocking for the sake of it that people leave the theater with this spectacular moment in their minds and maybe forget about all the mediocrity before that. It was just bad. Still, in-between it was alright here and there thanks to some scenes and pretty cool (nick)names like Control and a female first name synonym for the enemy, but even when it comes to the latter, they messed up in the end and failed to deliver an interesting solution or at least explanation there. Like I said in the title, this film really had some nice potential I think in terms of the cast, but also in terms of the story. What they turned it into is really disappointing. In-between, I occasionally had moments during whichI felt that maybe if it stays as solid as it was this exact moment, then perhaps I can give it 3 stars out of 5 and a positive recommendation, but at the end it wasn't a close call anymore because of how they messed up again. I can see why this film is moving closer to the 6 left of the comma here on imdb. And that would still be too high I believe. I have not read the novel this is based on, so not sure if I just don't like the base material or the approach they took here. Oh well, like I said le Carré was involved with the production here too, so I cannot go too easy on him in any case. I just believe that for one average-length movie it is very difficult to turn the base material here into quality and maybe I will check out the old miniseries at some point to see if that is better. I am actually not sure if this was the the first time I watched this movie here, could be that I saw it back then briefly after its release, but the fact that I am not sure already shows you that I did not find it memorable whatsoever back then either (if I saw it at all) and it sure does not get better on rewatch. I give it a thumbs-down. Not even worth checking out for an Oldman fan like myself. And normally I even like spy thrillers too. But they messed up too much here. Attention to detail can be seen on some occasions, but if the core story is so shoddy and lacks focus this much, attention to detail when it comes to minor aspects cannot save the film. Watch something else instead.