DVD Reviews: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy might just be my favorite movie of the year. Director Tomas Alfredson caught my attention a few years ago with his Swedish film Let the Right One in, which in my opinion is the best vampire film I’ve seen. This is a very different movie, but he still uses very similar techniques. He shoots several shots from a distance which sort of sets the mood of the story dealing with espionage, the setting is also very dark and grayish, and the story moves at a pretty slow pace, but at the same time the mystery and thrills are always there. This is how a spy thriller should be made; it’s about as realistic as any spy film could ever be.

Control (John Hurt), the leader of an unknown sector of the British Intelligence service, is ousted along with his long-standing companion George Smiley (Gary Oldman) due to a botched operation in Budapest, Hungary which saw the officer Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) murdered in public. Control was under the impression that there was a mole among the top ranking members of the service, referred to as the Circus by the other top ranking members due to its location in Cambridge Circus, London, and Smiley is drawn out of retirement to pinpoint the culprit after Control passes away. Alongside the young Intelligence officer Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley has four primary candidates to focus his investigation upon; they are the last remaining members of the Circus, Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik).

The story is just really well made, it’s really smart, there is a lot of talking going on, and not much action, but it forces you to pay attention to every small detail of the movie. Once the movie is over, you feel like watching it all over again because you feel like you had missed some important details. I really loved this film and was completely satisfied with the movie. The performances are great. Gary Oldman steals the show. He is so quiet and emotionless; what a really good spy probably looks like. You never know what is going through his mind, but you can’t help but think he knows what he’s doing.

It does feel slow at times but it still worked for me. Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy may not be immediately accessible – for all audiences — but it proceeds with an understated confidence and almost silent intensity that makes it a far more intriguing mole hunt than your run-of-the-mill spy thriller.

The commentary has some stretches of silence and kind of made me snooze.  There are about an hour worth of interviews that I could not really get into.  There is a “first look” behind the scenes feature that was meh.  However there are some deleted scenes here that may be worth watching such as the breakfast scene. 

Overall it is a solid movie. The acting is great. You have to keep in mind that your probably going to have to really be into these kinds of movies to fully appreciate this one.