As much as we enjoy James Bond movies, we have to admit that their portrayal of the spy world is patently ludicrous. Respectfully, it’s always been primarily a masculine power fantasy that treats being a spy like being a superhero, and has no bearing on what actual spycraft is like. As opposed to Ian Fleming’s approach to spy literature, John le Carré’s approach was relatively more accurate and grounded (while still not being quite a documentary). Le Carré used his real-world experience serving in MI5 and MI6 to inspire his novels, leading to some of the most authentically detailed spy stories ever written. One of his best books was adapted into a prestige film in 2011, which is one of the reasons why Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy became one of the best spy films ever made.
What Is the Historical Thriller ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ About?

Image via StudioCanal

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is the deputy for the Circus, a British secret intelligence agency that’s run by “Control” (John Hurt). When Control dies and Smiley is ousted from the agency, he’s tasked with sniffing out a mole who could be working from inside the Circus and giving the Russians information. The prime suspect could be any one of the four men put in charge of the Circus, none of whom Smiley is familiar with.

Related

Gary Oldman Is a Pervy Little Weirdo in This Bizarre Psychological Drama

Did somebody say mommy issues?

This puts Smiley in a position where he must team up with allies like the whistleblower Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), inside man Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), and Soviet analyst Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke). Less a test of might and willpower than one of spiritual decay and the folly of interpersonal trust, this is a spy film with a rhythm that glides in and out of pace with the merciless gaze of a security camera hidden in the shadows. Yet, your pulse still steadily goes up, thanks in large part to the impressively stony face of George Smiley.
Gary Oldman Leads an Incredible Cast Including Benedict Cumberbatch and Tom Hardy

Smiley is most infamous for his ability to be masterfully anonymous and able to be forgotten about as soon as he enters a room. This may sound monotonous, but it’s truly one of Gary Oldman’s most meticulous performances, alluring in its sphinx-like immobility and disconsolately broken in his few flashes of inner turmoil. It’s somehow the first role he got an Oscar nomination for, arguably even more impressive than the role he finally won an Oscar for. He leads a cast loaded with British heavyweights, including the aforementioned Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong, and Toby Jones, along with then-on-the-rise stars like Hardy, Cumberbatch, and Stephen Graham in a smaller role. All of these actors are able to make each character into distinctly recognizable people despite all existing under a similar haze of buried motivation and life-or-death decision-making. The heavily filtered mode of survival is evocatively matched by a direction and visual design that both matches and exacerbates how everyone is forced to see the world.

The spy world of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of oppressive gray, of all sense of black and white morality crushed beyond recognition into concrete. Morality becomes a matter of political convenience and opportunistic power grabs — a fallacy that Smiley is painfully aware of and that fuels his private suffering that he swallows on a constant basis. That internal confusion is reflected in Tomas Alfredson’s patient direction and Hoyte Von Hoytema’s morose and grain-drenched cinematography, far more comfortable gazing from a distance and asking you to look into the shadows and to scan every room for a potential angle. It’s not the high-flying thrills of your typical spy extravaganza, but trying to follow the plot of a John le Carré story is going to make you sweat, regardless. But if you can decipher it, it will be wildly rewarding, so rewarding that you’ll wonder why we never got another round of Oldman as Smiley. Well, we could have had it, but the Le Carré family apparently was not interested. They were allegedly stone-cold Oldman haters, which is simply spitting in the face of espionage greatness.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is available to rent on Prime Video in the U.S.
Rent on Prime Video

Your changes have been saved

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

Release Date

September 16, 2011

Runtime

127 minutes