Adapted from John le Carre's beloved novel, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is essentially a reboot of the BBC miniseries of the same name. I haven't seen it but that's what I heard. Gary Oldman stars as George Smiley an important man in the British Intelligence during the height of the Cold War. But when the head of the organization quits he takes Smiley with him. Smiley is unsure why he had to quit as well but he founds out when he is later commissioned to figure out who in the top levels of the agency is selling secrets to the Russians. They all have code names tinker, tailor, soldier and spy.
The film has two things going for it. It is extremely well shot. Beautiful composition, sound, and lighting all add to the general ambience of the film. At many points, when quite literally nothing was happening, I was on the edge of my seat because the suspense was killing me. The second thing it has going for it is very strong acting. Gary Oldman is wonderful, a well deserved oscar nomination there. Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong and many other actors that can be seen in every single British film this decade push their weight around like professionals.
But sadly, despite the great filming and suspense, there was no payoff. The climax was coming, it was all set to be really exciting and revealing and the director just kind of threw a wet blanket on everything, dousing the flame of my curiosity. It was exciting until it got really boring because I realized nothing was actually happening. And add on to that the confusion. At one point I thought I had it figured out. Well done movie, I said, that was quite a difficult plot that you ended wrapping up nicely in a way the audience can understand. But then the movie kept going for another twenty minutes and convinced me that I had in fact not understood a single thing that happened in the film. Understanding slipped away from me, never to be seen again. I should probably read a synopsis somewhere.
Anyways, well filmed and well acted but too far on the boring, confusing side to have any real impact.
2 and a half out of 4 stars
-Christopher O'Connell
No comments:
Post a Comment