Review of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) by Gimmedatsammich — 16 Jan 2012

I should have known what I was getting into. Years ago I attempted to read Le Carre's highly acclaimed novel and surrendered to it half way through; it was too complex for me. Character names were a mishmash, the chronology was all out of sorts, and I found myself feeling as if I were lost at sea.

Perhaps it was above my head, meant for a more erudite crowd. Whether the fault lay on my end or Le Carre's, I didn't really care. I had too many good books waiting on my shelf to waste time on something that bored me to tears.

A decade later, I opened up my newspaper and found myself reacquainted with TTSS; truth be told, I hadn't thought about it since I dejectedly returned my book to the library all those years ago. I was intrigued.

The names tacked on the brilliantly designed full page ad looked like an Oscar party guest list and Thomas Alfredson's last film, Let the Right One In, a deliciously spooky vampire flick, indicated to me that someone at least halfway decent was sitting in the director's chair.

Besides, movies aren't necessarily carbon copies of their source material. A muddled, confusing novel might find redemption on the big screen if handled properly. The basic premise of TTSS is extremely compelling: a mole has burrowed his way into the upper echelons of a British intelligence agency.

Deceit. Treachery. Violence. A timeless, endlessly entertaining combination. I was suckered all over again. Why I thought the film would be any better than the book baffles me. It's got all the endless of "endlessly entertaining", and none of the entertainment.

I sat through the entire movie but would have quit halfway through, as I did the book, were it not for my company. I didn't want to seem rude, as my date apparently loved it. Maybe she had a crush on Gary Oldman.

Whatever her highly questionable motives might be, I don't really care, as I will not be asking her for a second date. This movie is boring and hopelessly complex- a disastrous combination. If something exciting happened every once and while, maybe a chair being knocked over or Gary Oldman actually showing some enthusiasm, anything, anything at all, I could forgive the convolution of the story.

But they give us nothing. There are only two- count it- TWO shots fired in the entire (what seemed like) thirteen hour running time, and one of those comes in the last three minutes. A spy movie with only two gunshots? Unforgivable.

For comparison, imagine if 99% of Saving Private Ryan consisted of Eisenhower and company planning out the D-Day invasion- drawing maps, calculating logistics, playing with action figures, wiping their arses, and in the last two minutes, we see Tom Hanks and his squad approach Omaha Beach and vaporize in front of our eyes when an artillery shell bullseyes their LVT.

The end. That's TTSS in a nutshell for ya. I found myself lost at sea yet again. At the end of the movie, I still didn't know any of the character's motivations, let alone half of their names, who the villain was, or why anything happened to anybody.

It's almost as if we were dropped into the film midway without so much as an introduction, and expected to follow along. I felt like it was my first day at work at a job I was hopelessly under-qualified for.

At thirty minutes, I was checking my watch. At an hour and a half I was nearly comatose. Had the movie stretched past two and a half hours, I would have left the theater in a body bag. The three was only awarded because the film was technically superb.

The acting was, as expected, superb and the setting- dreary, gray, and perpetually damp 1960's England- was fittingly depressing and moody. If this was trimmed down to four minutes and set to a gloomy Radiohead song about the Cold War, it would have been the best damn music video ever made.

Unfortunately, it's a movie, and movies actually require some semblance of a story to entertain most people. Damn shame.