'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' Film Fails as Story Telling

COMMENTARY | The modern film version of "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy," based on the novel by John Le Carre, while stylistically appealing, fails as an attempt at story telling. This is because it compresses a complex plot into a two hour movie.

Indeed if one is nor familiar with the story of the mole hunt within the British Secret Service, known as "the Circus," either from the novel or from the much superior mini-series that starred Alec Guinness as spymaster George Smiley, one will have great trouble following the story at all.

This time around, Smiley is played by Gary Oldman who, in keeping with the Le Carre dim, unglamorous vision of the shadowy spy wars between the West and the Soviet Union, is phenomenally seedy, ugly, and colorless. The only time Smiley displays any emotion at all is when he discovers that one of the suspects has been carrying on with his wife.

The plodding, step by step process with which Smiley unravels all the lies and catches the mole that his arch enemy, KGB spymaster Karla, is ill served by having it compress to fit the movie running time. One can pay attention without blinking for the entire length of the movie and one still has to surmise to fill in the gaps. There are some stories that cannot be told for just a two hour evening, sitting in the dark. "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" is one of them.

Those who are used to seeing spy craft depicted with exciting car chases and gun fights by handsome people like Michael Weston or Annie Walker will also find "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy" something of a disappointment. The spies of the story are for the most part middle aged, unattractive men who are more often than not interested in their petty intrigues and betrayals than doing their part in what President Kennedy called "the long twilight struggle" between the West and the Soviet Union. As with most Le Carre stories, there is no sense of the stakes of the Cold War. It is a meaningless conflict whose side one can choose, as the traitor eventually tells Smiley, for as much aesthetic as well as moral reasons. Absent, therefore, of the satisfaction of seeing the mystery unveiled, we are left with that vision, which is depressing indeed.

Source: Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, Yahoo Movies