Unfortunately tepid and listless adaptation

Rating: 5/10 (14 December 2011)

If you're expecting insurmountable intrigue from this adaptation of the John Le Carre novel, you might be in for some disappointment. The mood is well set, the scenes are well shot, and the thespians are at the top of their games, but the plot plods, so much so that you wind up not really caring who the bad guy turns out to be. Or, if you do care, you find that you yourself had narrowed it down to Him or The Other Guy about an hour earlier than George Smiley.
Smiley (Gary Oldman) is a recent retiree of The Circus, the nickname for Britain's intelligence operations. More accurately, Smiley was forced out, along with the operations' leader, Control (John Hurt) when a mission in Hungary went horribly wrong. But now Britain suspects that a mole has infiltrated The Circus - and it's residing at the top of the metaphorical food chain. Smiley is brought in on the down-low to find out who the mole is and what he's up to.
If it seems like a standard spy film, that's because it really is. Except that in this case, Control has figured out that one of five men - the tippy-top of The Circus - is the mole. Already, then, our list of suspects is narrow.
Because of this, you might expect the movie to include plenty of distracting action, perhaps some crazy chase scenes, people dangling off landmarks, that sort of thing. But it's not to be. Instead, we get a somewhat painful slog through Smiley's endless detective work. There's hardly any action at all; there's a lot of thinking, which is logical given the chess-like nature of the spy business, but it doesn't often make for good cinema. In fact, there are long stretches where Smiley hardly utters a word, even in voice-over. This makes things a little tougher to follow, and I found myself overthinking the plot. The story turns out to be a lot simpler - and more simplistic - than I'd imagined.
The novel was adapted into a BBC miniseries in 1979. I have not seen this miniseries, which starred Alec Guinness as Smiley, but I have to imagine that because it was shown in seven parts, more time was devoted to fleshing out the characters and their motivations. It's a little easier to provide subtle details in a longer format, after all, and this big-screen version skimps on the subtleties and leaves us with dull, somnolent machinations, some of which are obvious red herrings.
Oldman, of course, makes a great George Smiley, and it's interesting how much he looks like a younger John Hurt, who here plays his superior. I don't think of Oldman as, pardon the pun, an old man, and he is only 52 years old. But he adapts a quaint, stooped mannerism to Smiley that evokes a man who's always thinking two steps ahead of his opponents.
But it's not enough, not even with the capable supporting cast, which includes Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Toby Jones. There's just not a lot to figure out, and when it's figured out, it's too tidy - especially the ending, which is so obvious that it can be view from outer space, as the saying goes. Side note, though: this version contains quite a bit more blood than you'd expect (even with so little action); the level of gore in those scenes approaches the overall tone of, say, Seven. So be warned - this ain't for the kiddies.
Overall, the adaptation is a bit of a disappointment, given the source and the talent. It manages to take a spy thriller and remove the thriller part. Less thrilling doesn't taste great.