Dense and Unnecessarily Convoluted

Rating: 6/10 (18 January 2019)

7 January 2012. There's sophisticated and there's overly dense movies...When audience members have to think real, real hard, when they aren't sure what's going on due not to the plot, but due to the editing and omission of important plotpoints, then a movie becomes more a hardship than an enjoyable mystery experience. With this version of La Carre's novel, the beginning even provides an exaggerated parody of sophistication as the movie pans carefully on each character and supporting cast, forcing the audience to suspect every person of possible collusion in some nefarious espionage plot when in reality by the very nature of espionage such behavior would actually be much more subtle and covert. The movie than turns suddenly into a much more confusing and sometimes almost unnecessarily artful movie with shots that seemingly have little relevance except to attempt to portray underdeveloped human characters.
Perhaps much more direct but yet indirect by deliberate disinformation which maintains a sharper and much more heightened sense of artistic, dramatic confusion can be found in such movies as The Three Days of Condor (1975) and the well richly underplayed but riveting espionage film The Russia House (1990) that captures the slow, non-action but emotive spy drama. Spy Games (2001) also had the high intensity, misdirection and graphic espionage drama that offered the audience a mentally riveting and challenging plot line that balanced both the action and mental substantive machinations of espionage. Other espionage movies that retain both the more underplayed but effective dramatic presentation include The Good Shepard (2006), Spartan (2004), Breach (2007).
Tinker, Tailor almost needs unnecessarily a decoder ring to really enjoy and understand the movie, the movie itself become captured in its own cipher.