‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ is a chess game for the ages

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy refuses to talk down to its audience. The 127-minute espionage thriller, ably directed by Tomas Alfredson, requires a great deal of commitment and dedication to follow all the complicated story lines and revelations. For those willing to let the movie win them over, the experience is intimate and effective, almost like we’ve been called to be another agent of the MI6, the British secret intelligence service.

Gary Oldman plays George Smiley, a veteran spy forced into retirement after a horrible debacle in Hungary that leaves one of the service’s closest associates dead. Both Smiley and his boss, Control (John Hurt), bow out gracefully, while the younger set, including Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds) and Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), take over duties.

Although Smiley seems to enjoy his first few days on holiday, you can’t keep a good man down. As one last assignment, the ex-spy is asked to investigate arguably the largest, and most tricky, case of his career. It turns out the Hungary debacle wasn’t simply another scuffle in the Cold War tango between the West and Moscow. The mission was run by Control as a means to find a Russian mole within the M16 organization.

With Control now dead and the double agent still within the British ranks, it’s up to Smiley to figure out what’s going on.

Alfredson, working off a script by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, which itself is based on a famous novel by John le Carré, knows how to keep the story engaging and fraught with intensity, even after the audience starts scratching its head. The look of the film is expertly realized; the washed-0ut colors and grainy pictures call to mind the early 1970s, where everyone apparently wore a suit and had a pack of cigarettes at the ready.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy never inundates the viewer with too much exposition. In fact, much of the film, including the first 20 minutes, relies heavily on silence. Smiley is not a gun-wielding, James Bond type. He’s deliberative, contemplative and smart, the type of guy who solves cases in his head, rather than with his fists. This makes him somewhat un-cinematic. There are no high-speed car chases in the movie, and gone are all references to shaken-not-stirred cocktails and lovely ladies with deathly secrets. This is a refreshing espionage tale cloaked in reality and procedural government work. In some ways, it’s more reminiscent of All the President’s Men than Dr. No.

There’s no better cast than the one assembled for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Oldman offers a complex portrait of a quiet man, which is much more difficult to pull off than the flashier roles he’s more accustomed to playing (this is the man who played Sid Vicious in Sid and Nancy, lest we forget).

Jones and Hurt are also particularly fine in their portrayals, and they make the best use of the high-minded script. There’s a real feeling that these spies are the real deal, men tasked with fighting a war of wills and deceptions, rather than bullets and bombs.

Tom Hardy turns up as Ricki Tarr, one of many ancillary figures with quite a few beans to spill. The role is necessary, but it also shows the limitations of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. We become so involved in understanding this central unit of the MI6 that outsiders become distractions (and complicate matters further). That’s one of the drawbacks of having such fine company among the leading cast; intrusions are unwelcome.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy will have its fans and its detractors. It’s not a run-of-the-mill story that features understandable plot points. It’s as complex as what it must have been like to tell secrets in the early 1970s. We’re allowed to listen in on some conversations, but not all. This gives us unprecedented access, and also leaves us yearning to know more.

By John Soltes / Publisher / John@HollywoodSoapbox.com

• Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

• 2011

• Directed by Tomas Alfredson

• Written by Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan; based on the novel by John le Carré

• Starring Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Tom Hardy, Colin Firth, Toby Jones, David Dencik, Ciarán Hinds and Mark Strong

• Running time: 127 minutes

• Rated R for violence, some sexuality/nudity and language

• Rating: