Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)

What I like about this kind of spy film is that repeat viewings generally have something new to uncover.  Watching this again at home instead of in a crowded theater allowed me to really focus on what was happening and also to pay more attention to the performances, instead of just mentally ticking off each actor as they appeared.  Mark Strong came across so much better this time, as did Tom Hardy.  Originally posted 14 Jan 2012.  Nominated for Best Lead Actor, Best Adapted Screenplay, and Best Original Score    This was the most polite, most quintessentially British spy movie I have ever seen.  We're not talking James Bond, where it's all gadgets and picking up women that Americans like.  We're talking cutting remarks and chilling silences covered in that English awkwardness.  Which is not to say that it's a bad movie.  I just think people will expect it to be something else.  My mother remembers reading the book and she told me that she hoped the movie wouldn't be too cerebral.  I don't mind cerebral and that's exactly what it is, which prepared me better than the other people in the theater.  I heard one trio remark as they walked out that it was "too convoluted".  I didn't find it so and neither did Rob but we're pretty used to being the exceptions.

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is forced into retirement from MI6 along with his boss Control (John Hurt).  Guilt by association, it turns out because Control suspected a highly-placed mole and set up an operation to try and flush him out which turned disastrous and ended up getting an agent (Mark Strong) shot.  After another agent (Tom Hardy), thought to be defected, comes in with a similar tale of a high-placed mole, Smiley is brought back in unofficially.  With the help of only one insider (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley has to uncover the web and determine which of four men at the top of Britain's spy network is a Russian mole:  Tinker (Toby Jones), Tailor (Colin Firth), Soldier (Ciaran Hinds) or Poor Man (David Dencik).

Why Poor Man and not spy?  Because the names are from a British counting rhyme:  "Tinker, tailor, soldier, sailor, rich man, poor man, beggar man, thief."  I'm sure the book makes much more of an allusion to it than the movie.  I would put this movie on par with The Good Shepherd as far as spy films.  It's very quiet and tense with a lot of subtext and brief, but brutal, action.