MOVIE REVIEW: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is Spy Versus Spy Versus Spies

Actually, the plot is more complicated than the title makes it sound. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a 1970s-era Cold War espionage thriller with a familiar story: an old spy is brought out of semi-retirement in order to find out which of his former colleagues is a traitor who is passing along secrets to the Russians.

Based on the novel by John le Carré, who worked with the British Intelligence in the 1950s and 1960s, it is both an anti-James Bond caper and anti-nostalgia movie. Both London and its communist counterparts are depicted as bleak, colorless, drab environs and the characters match their settings.

The actors who play said characters are first-rate, with a cast that includes Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Ciarán Hinds, and Gary Oldman. Oldman plays George Smiley, who is forced into retirement after a disastrous operation results in the loss of an agent and an international incident. However, when a mole is suspected to have infiltrated British Intelligence, Smiley is charged with finding him. To that end, he gathers a small team and proceeds in a very careful, realistic, and cerebral probe of his former colleagues.

Oldman plays Smiley as a man whom you never see smile, a very ordinary-looking man who seems to blend into the background. In other words, a man who is easy to underestimate. That would be your mistake. By the end, he proves those qualities only make him that much more formidable an opponent. When he finally decides to pounce, it means you never see him coming unless he wants you to.

The plot gets complicated, then admittedly a bit dense, and a second viewing may be required. But the payoff is worth it.

Rating: A-