Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy vs. Spy

Rating: 6/10 (29 December 2011)

This film is mildly recommended.
The spy game ain't what it used to be. That's apparent when one compares the recent arrival of two films of espionage this holiday season. The differences are quite startling. The first offering is Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy, a retro look at the spy industry and the Cold War mentality during the 1970's. ( The second entry is Mission Impossible 4: Ghost Protocol, but more on that film next week. )
Trying to condense John le Carré 1974 British spy novel can be a formidable task, almost as daunting as finding a mole within the hierarchy of agents. Once an award winning seven part miniseries starring Alec Guinness in the lead role of George Smiley, TTSS now stars Gary Oldman as that super spy sleuth. Obviously, this film adaptation is shorter in length. It also sacrifices some important exposition, character motivation, and plot development in the process of revision.
The plot, for those who don't know the original source, involves a double agent working secretively in British Intelligence. Control ( John Hurt ), the head of the organization, has narrowed down and code-named the list of suspects to include: Percy Alleline ( Tinker, played by Toby Jones ), Bill Haydon ( Tailor, a well cast Colin Firth ), Roy Bland ( Tailor, Ciarán Hinds in this role ), and Smiley himself ( Spy ). Also possibly on the list is Toby Esterhase ( David Dencik ). First Contol sends Jim Prideaux ( Mark Strong ) on the mission to track down the true identity of the mole ( if he chooses to accept the mission, which he does ). Things go terribly awry and soon George Smiley is heading the investigation.
Oldman makes an effective Smiley, a man betrayed and unable to trust others within the organization. He is remote and cold, a bit of an enigma himself. Behind his wide frame glasses, Smiley remains a detached observer of the behavior swirling around him. The actor shows off this side of the man extremely well. But as it is written here, Oldman fails to bring out the insecurities and eccentricities of the main character. There is solid support by the aforementioned Firth, Dencik, and Strong, plus Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy as the younger breed of undercover agent. But some of the other supporting characters are given short rift and their lack of sufficient screen time hinders the compelling mystery. Ably directed by Tomas Alfredson, the film's structure and editing needlessly jumps forward and back in time, adding more confusion to an already dense plot. Though the mystery is finally resolved by the end, the moviegoer's journey to discover the culprit becomes harried and exhausting. Yes, the conclusion makes logical sense, but the film's lackadaisical pacing is all too tedious and conventional with the film's episodic format, undercutting any real impact.
By far, the high point of TTSS is the fine period details in its costuming by Jacqueline Durran and the production design by Maria Djurkovic. Female secretaries, fashionably dressed, decode cryptic numerical messages as they listen to wiretapped conversations on large tape recorders, furiously pounding the keyboards on their then state-of-the art typewriters. Alfredson relishes the dated images as he creates a non-computerized world that never fails to fascinate in its atmospheric surroundings. ( A nice touch is the chessboard inspired boardroom at Intelligence headquarters. ) The director also films much of the action, or really the non-action, with distant shots ( ala Hitchcock's Rear Window ), or through grungy windows and narrow corridors to establish the paranoia of the times. The look of the film is so bloody good to watch!
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is just too convoluted for its own bloody good to thoroughly enjoy! GRADE: B-
NOTE: The movie poster, with its clever mix of numbers and words, is one of the strongest thematic designs this year. As Oldman adjusts his spectacles for a closer look, the viewer is drawn into his stare. As we take a closer look, we can notice the changing hues of text that define his character and have hidden clues to the film itself. Just brilliant!
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