Review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) by Georgeblomme — 08 Jan 2012

This is one huge disappointing film, from beginning to end. The British in their endless fascination in their own history have, thanks to a famous novelist, now have a film about a group of their own Cold War counterintelligence agents, who dislike and mistrust each other, find American counterintelligence a threat, and talk about finding worthy Russian counterintelligence.

But all these agents, these people, do is talk quietly, sneer at each other, and so on. There are too many one-on-one scenes where the conversations are dull, often meaningless, since nothing appears to come of them.

Maybe this is really the fodder of a stage play - a drama centered on one-on-one dialogue. This film got good reviews, bad box office, and now I understand the bad box office.