2.5 out of 5 stars
The movie “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” is based on John Le Carre’s spy novel, written in 1974 and went by the same name. The cast of the movie is very interesting and famous in cinema, led by Gary Oldman as George Smiley, who was a British Intelligence operative in the Cold War era, his role is very contrasting to what spies are usually portrayed as. The movie begins by showing him as a British spy who is required to expose a high-ranking mole inside the operative.
He sends Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) to Budapest in order to meet a Hungarian general who has inside information about a mole that has been planted in the organisation by the Russians. This meeting with the general does not end well for Prideaux as he gets shot and dies, which results in the forced retirement of George Smiley and Control, which is played by John Hurt- who dies a year after this incident in 1973. It is after the death of Control that Smiley gets re-recruited to continue the hunt for the mole.
The music that is played throughout sets the mood of the scene accurately with depth, suspense, and drama and aids in the explanation of each scene too.
The joyful song called "La Mer" plays in the background as each last character drifts back to an undeniably stable state of contentment. The cast is outstanding, as it includes Benedict Cumberbatch, Toby Jones, Colin Firth and Ciaran Hinds, all well-known British performers.
The prestigious combination of all of this comes with a profusion of responsibilities, which results in a lack of ease for the identification of people and their code names and instead makes it more difficult. There are also recurrent flashbacks- not long and descriptive, but short and choppy which do not reveal many details, finish suddenly and begin again with a minimum warning. There are no changes in physicality like ageing, geographical contrast or variations in the cinematography, which makes it extremely difficult to follow up because everything changes within the blink of an eye.
The ultimate climactic unveiling is challenging and enigmatic, but the resolution has a gratifying feeling to it. The movie was 127 minutes long, which still did not seem like the perfect time to end it. Catching up with the scenes and the emotions was a lot of effort that the audience needed to put in. It felt like some scenes existed to drag the movie for a longer duration as they seemed pretty unresourceful. An attempt that was made to make a movie out of a novel was a good one, but assuming that it is not easy, it was a pretty good attempt.
The movie was a rollercoaster of acting and emotions, but it showed that everyone in the cast did their scene in a very pleasing way, which I felt was what kept me watching the movie. The ending comes out to be surprising as the suspense is thoroughly made and nicely carried out throughout the entire movie. The death of Bill Haydon, who was the mole all along did not come as a shock as Haydon had been having an affair with Smiley’s wife, Ann.
There is some unclear and still suspenseful reason as to why Prideaux shot him, where it seems like there is some other motive for him to be killed.
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