Great performances, not so good movie (some spoilers below)

Rating: 5/10 (9 January 2012)

Having seen the BBC series of this book, it is difficult to cut a break to a 2 hour movie. And I don't intend to. Peter Jackson realized that TLOTR could not be made into a single 2 or 3-hour movie, similarly the director of this film should have realized that 4 hours would be a minimum to convey such a complex film, but 4 hours of slow pace would not have sold well at the box office, at least in North America, where attention spans and intellectual prowess of the movie-going public is akin to that of a dead slug. The performances in general are very, very good. It is clear that many of the actors have seen the BBC production as some performance snippets are almost exactly as the series. Not a bad idea. The plot is disconcerting as there are changes from the book that simply do not make sense. why move it from "Cheko" to Hungary? I see no value to it. Why move it from a forest cottage to the middle of a city? This one really does not make sense. If you are planning a clandestine meeting (or kidnapping) you don't set the meeting up at a café in a bazaar. Control died, not quit, and Smiley was turfed, not resigned. No value in that change either. Tarr did not call Lacon, but Guillam, and he never went to Smiley directly. It would have been a gaff of colossal proportions since Smiley was one of the suspects so this is another senseless change. The minister was NEVER directly involved. None of these changes seem to add anything to the story except set it apart from the Brit mini-series. Another problem is continuity. Unless you have read the book, you will not make any sense of the story. no scene comes to any rational conclusion, but is left for the viewer to magically figure out what it was about and what happened in between before the next scene. The title of the story is central to the actual plot as it sets the stage for Control's private enterprise, but is casually mentioned in the film.And what is it with the party scenes...?
I read that LeCarre was impressed with the script. Doubt it unless he has gone dotty. The whole key to the story are the Cheko scandal and the Irina story, both of which are glossed over far too quickly. Nonetheless, John Hurt makes a great Control and Gary Oldman a great Smiley. If you have not read the book and can follow the story, big kudos to you. If you have read the books, you will be somewhat disappointed with the watering down of such a suspenseful story.