Stinker, staler: an epic in dull, plodding movie making

Rating: 2/10 (18 October 2011)

This is one of those films in which everybody looks at everybody else deeply meaningfully, to convey a story that by now lacks both originality and interest (who is the mole in the organization?! wowee!). The characters even walk slowly and purposefully to ensure you realize they're involved in something terribly significant.
Every small step of the plot is unfolded with the kind of heavy handed, overblown technique so beloved of the pretentious auteur directors of the 1960s. I thought they didn't make them like this any more, but unfortunately I was wrong. I'd like to give such an obviously high quality cast and production team the benefit of the doubt; that they caught me in a bad mood on a bad day. But when you see even railway trains overacting you have objective evidence that you're watching a film whose makers think they're a darn sight smarter than they really are. One cutaway shows a portion of railway track switching — presumably symbolism that someone in the story just got the point (geddit?).
I'm sorry I couldn't like this one better; it is meant to give us a realistic view of the tedious but dangerous business of cold war spying. But it takes ponderous, pretentious movie making to new heights. Perhaps we should put it on the record as the first film in which the techniques of method acting are extended to infest everyone concerned, right down to the chief grip.