I had mistakenly assumed that this film adaptation of John Le Carre’s classic spy novel was a remake when actually the only other adaptation was a TV mini-series (with the late Sir Alec Guinness). Directed by Swede Tomas Alfredson (of Let the Right One In fame) and featuring a stellar British cast, this film adaptation contains the right mood and tone of a 70s spy novel written at the height of the Cold War. This is no action movie with the emphasis placed instead on narrative and nuance. Granted one needs to pay careful attention to the plot to make sense of everything and Alfredson never hits you on the head in this respect, thereby showing tremendous respect for the audience.
In a nutshell, our protagonist is former Deputy Head of British Intelligence George Smiley (Gary Oldman) who has been tasked by the undersecretary in charge of intelligence to investigate accusations by disgraced operative Ricky Tar (Tom Hardy) one of the leaders amongst the top echelon of the British Intelligence viz. Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill Hayden (Colin Firth) and Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) is a Soviet mole.
The story is told in numerous flashbacks, often in innovative stylized fashion and the unfolding of the tale leads us inevitably to the traitor in the midst of British intelligence. Enthralling throughout but my primary reservation is that the film lacks tension, there is no single time when one felt that any of the characters were in serious danger. But I guess it’s not really that kind of story. In any case, a wonderful respite from the inane blockbuster action flick.
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