Spy thriller or sexist propaganda piece?

Rating: 4/10 (5 March 2013)

It is a bit unfair to compare this film with the 80's BBC TV series, suffice it to say that the latter delivers the story infinitely better. What spoiled this film for me was the political message/propaganda contained in it and the message is that men are weak, pathetic, unresourceful and unsympathetic creatures. Almost all (if not all) the male characters are portrayed more negatively than in the TV production, sometimes very much so:
Peter Guillam goes from a turbocharged playboy, physical type to a fumbling, crying, closet homosexual.
Percy Alleline and Toby Esterhazy are both somewhat unsympathetic characters with certain weaknesses, yet with qualities relevant to their profession and in Alleline's case, a commanding presence. Both are reduced to goblins, really, with no apparent redeeming qualities in the film.
Boris goes from a "Moscow Center hood", a real tough guy to someone falling over himself as a pretend drunk.
Jim Prideaux is horribly miscast, no longer the "iron fist in the iron glove" but looks actually more at home as a teacher.
Bill Hayden was the cavalier and charmer in the TV series, we don't see much of him in the film, except to make it clear that he is the office head lecher if not sexual predator. The wit and charm is nowhere to be seen.
Roy Bland doesn't leave much of an impression in the film, so is hard to measure on this scale.
The Budapest waiter sweating - more of the same.
Control and Smiley retain most of their personas. The film takes care to show Control's death, irrelevantly, in an unsympathetic light.
The male characters in the film are further undermined by the lack of physical action and resourcefulness. The highly sensitive Budapest meeting is in a public place; Toby Esterhazy is snatched at the front door of the Circus; Ricky Tarr doesn't enter Boris' and Irina's flat solidly trying to talk himself out of the situation but takes on the role of a Peeping Tom instead. Any character of the story would put it like this: "Where's the tradecraft?" There doesn't seem to be any in the entire film at all.
Then there's the piece of graffiti on a wall around the middle of the film - "The future is female". That's as may be, but why fill this period film with sexist propaganda? Why not try to do the story justice instead? It appears that the whole point of the film is to make the male characters look worthless, incompetent and undeserving of their positions - quite a bit like soviet film making showing us the failings of Tzarist society.