The essence of spying

Rating: 9/10 (2 April 2012)

The movie will disappoint, if you expect Bond/Bourne. It is much more like "The Usual Suspects".
In general, you could say it is a sort of spy-as-a-profession piece, much closer to what it actually means to work in the intelligence than any of the spy-action movies: lots of talking, office work, reading, thinking... and as a result people die, and sometimes wars get started.
As the one who has read the book, I could follow the plot. I suspect that if one hasn't seen it, it could be hard sometimes. A lot of background detail from the book is omitted or only sketched, leading to some of the things appearing to have no reason.
I appreciated the slow burn of the movie and subdued violence hanging in the background.
What I did dislike was that the climax and last part of the movie seemed to be too rushed, lacking the necessary exposure/preparation. I got the feeling that the movie should have been about 15-20 minutes longer to explain/show more of the actual preparation for the finale and fill in background.
The biggest disappointment for me was that the trailer music never appeared in the movie. The film's music is good, but since it is as low key as the movie itself, it subtracts from the suspense, while the trailer music would have added to it and sort of helped to tie the plot together.
Despite all that, yes, 9/10 for me.