Watch the 1979 serialization, not this film

Rating: 5/10 (30 August 2017)

I've never read the book but have watched the television series with Alec Guinness several times. The film is nowhere near as good. It is bitty and spasmodic, the action jumps around rather too much with little explanation and following the plot is far from easy; if I didn't already have a good idea of it, I'd have been totally bewildered. It may be a style of film making that appeals to a younger generation but that says more about the limited expectations of the younger generation than it does about the quality of the film.
John Hurt as 'Control' has little part to play but is fine; Gary Oldman makes a good Smiley but there the plaudits must end. The rest of the cast drift in and out without really making much impression which is very sad given the people involved. Toby Jones, as Alleline, and Benedict Cumberbatch as Guillam are the only ones to have much to do, the rest are almost superfluous. Colin Firth and Cairan Hinds as 2 of the major characters are almost unseen and for Kathy Burke to appear seemingly just so that a couple of naughty words could be included makes no sense. Few of the characters are on screen long enough for any development and most seem more like cardboard cut-outs than real people; there's little passion from anyone.
It may be that attempting to condense what took more than 5 hours of television time into just 2 hours for the big screen was not possible or it may be that the makers simply weren't up to the job. Either way, this is a poor effort and both film and cast are a long way short of the excellent serialization in 1979. The sad truth is that they just don't make them like that anymore.