Not as good as the mini-series

Rating: 6/10 (17 January 2012)

I realize a two hour movie has to cut things out that a mini-series running five hours can leave in. However, it seems the heart of the mini-series was cut out. In the end, this is a suspense story - who was the spy (or spies)? In the mini-series, we are early on introduced to Alleline, Haydon, Bland and Esterhase, particularly in flashbacks when Smiley approaches them individually, at Control's request. We can also see motives for spying - Esterhase is a foreigner, and unmotivated by British patriotism, Haydon is a fop, Bland is working class with a left-wing background, Alleline has characteristics which would bring to mind Kim Philby. This is gone in the movie, we're barely introduced to the suspected spies, and have no ideas what the motives are.
Then at the end of the movie, when it is revealed, we still don't really get an idea what the motivation for spying was, like we get in the mini-series. The entire Cold War context of this is drained. There was a real Cambridge Five in England, five men from the best families who went to the best schools, yet chose loyalty to the Comintern and the USSR over England. Fiction pieces like this are partially an exploration on what the motivations of such men would be, yet this is completely missing in the film. Absent the suspense, and the character motivations, the movie is rather empty. If they had switched around who the spy was in the movie, would it have made any difference? The answer is no, and that's the failing of this movie, ultimately there's about as much suspense as what card might get picked out of a deck - the answer is drained of all meaning.