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| Tom Hardy and Gary Oldman |
Mark-
I went into this movie with really high expectations, despite not really knowing much about it. Unfortunately my lack of background concerning this film is what deterred me from enjoying it more than I did. I’ve never read the book or seen the mini-series concerning this story, which having done would provide a much greater understanding of how this movie ultimately comes together.
The general plot of this film revolves around the British Intelligence during the Cold War. When an operation in Budapest goes wrong, the head of the operation team (Control), along with a senior member (Smiley) are forced to resign. When Smiley is approached a short time later by a rogue agent, he is informed that the true operative of the Budapest mission was to discover if there was a mole within the British Intelligence. Smiley agrees to explore and investigate the situation, working to determine which of four remaining senior agents may be the Russian mole.
There is no doubt that the acting in this film is unbelievable. While Gary Oldman has received the majority of the notoriety for his portrayal as Smiley, the film would not be the same without its huge contributions of the supporting cast. I expected a much bigger role from Colin Firth, but the real gems of the supporting cast for me were John Hurt, Toby Jones, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, and Tom Hardy.
The unfortunate downfall for this film is that it was incredibly confusing. There are a lot of inferences made about different situations and characters in the film, but there is little to no actual finality to the inferences. Sadly, I don’t feel that rewatching the film would provide any more answers, but instead the only way to really know what the inferences mean would be to read the novel, or possibly watch the mini-series from the 1970s.
I love a good spy movie, and especially love twists and turns, but the confusion of the plot was just a little too much for me. I still really enjoyed the performances of the cast, but they weren’t enough to help me enjoy the film more than I did. 3 ½ *’s out of 5.
MY RANDOM THOUGH FOR TINKER, TAILOR, SOLDIER, SPY: I don’t think that I’ve been as excited about the possibilities of an actors career as I am for Tom Hardy right now. I’m really hoping that he gets, and takes, the opportunity to have more roles like he did in this film, and not end up being known simply as a tough guy action star. It’s crazy how much he reminds me of Russell Crowe.
Dan-
Let me begin by saying that this movie seems like it would be the most accurate portrayal of espionage from the Cold War era ever shown in movies. There are no unbelievable action sequences like you would see in a James Bond or Jason Bourne movie and no fancy gadgets either. All of the action and intrigue is cerebral and internal because I never knew who to trust. And while it is to be commended for being grounded in realism, it unfortunately did not make a great movie. The source material is a much beloved novel (unread by me) which was previously adapted into a successful BBC miniseries from the 1970s (unseen by me) starring the original Obi-Wan Kenobi himself, Alec Guinness, I hoped for good things. But sadly, my expectations did not meet the reality of the movie.
The plot of finding a Russian mole working inside British Intelligence in the midst of the Cold War made it sound intriguing, and the cast seemed like it couldn't miss. Unfortunately, the script just couldn't get into the unspoken details that surely were in the source material. There just isn't enough time in a two, or even three, hour movie to explain more. When the identity of the mole is ultimately revealed (don't worry I won't spoil it!) the problem for me was that while I wanted to know, it didn't quite have the impact that I thought it should have. Too much was left unsaid, too many details went unexplained, and too many questions were left unanswered. It perhaps requires multiple viewings to flesh out the characters a little better and catch details that went unnoticed the first time, not to mention trying to keep all the characters straight as there were so many that are involved.
It was a little difficult to jump right in to this story considering that the structure of the movie did not seem to flow for me, not to mention that there isn't much dialogue in the first 20 minutes of the movie either. A large portion of the story is told in flashback and the times when the scenes switched back and forth didn't work and were confusing. It became difficult to remember everyone's names and whether or not I had seen them in the flashback or the present, and what significance they held. There were several shots of characters staring at pictures as well as lingering camera shots of the faces of them as if I was supposed to be reading the mind of who was on screen at the moment. It also seemed like there was a homosexual subtext happening with a few of the male characters. Now I admit that I could be completely wrong about that aspect, but I doubt it.
Much is to be said about the strength of the cast, which made this movie very watchable so that I wanted to know what happened with all of them. Gary Oldman as George Smiley was nominated for Best Actor, but I found the other supporting characters more compelling, particularly Benedict Cumberbatch (best name ever!) as Peter Guillam, Tom Hardy (Bane himself!) as Ricki Tarr, and Mark Strong as Jim Prideaux. These characters were easiest to identify with and credit goes also to the rest of the big-name cast for doing so much with so little screen time, particularly Colin Firth, who has such an engaging screen presence in everything he does.
I give this movie 3 out of 5 stars, which seems high considering how much I didn't like it. The performances elevated this movie, but I couldn't figure out for the life of me the 'why' of it all at the end. I realize that some people enjoy this type of plot structure and screenplay because it is open to endless interpretation by the audience. And while this may work for a film studies class it did not work on an entertainment level.
Nerd Note: Of all the memorable characters that Gary Oldman has played, this movie resulted in his first Oscar nomination! This is the same guy that was Commissioner Gordon in The Dark Knight Trilogy, Sirius Black in the Harry Potter movies, as well as pure evil embodied as Stansfield in Leon: The Professional. He also has an amazing voice talent to further disappear into his roles and as a result I did not know he was British until after I saw an interview with him before he showed up in the Harry Potter movies. I don't think I've ever seen him look or act the same in any two movies that weren't part of a series. He is truly an original actor.
