Film-Tech Forum ARCHIVE: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

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Posted by Stu Jamieson (Member # 4626) on 01-21-2012, 06:56 PM:

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a characteristically British film. It lacks all the pizazz of American cinema (David Fincher notwithstanding) with it's slow, plodding plot; muted 70's colours (no, kids, the 70's wasn't all free sex and disco bling); and the archetypal English stiff-upper-lippedness. Odd then that such a film would come from Swedish director, Tomas Alfredson. But judging by his previous film, the much-adored fangless vampire flick, Let the Right One In, this is perhaps not such a stretch.

With his latest film, Alfredson shows himself to be a quiet, confident film maker in the classical mould. Tinker Tailor harks back to a time before CG and high-octane action, when editing, plotting and performance were paramount; when cinema patrons were expected to stop munching loudly on their crisps for two seconds and just follow what's going on screen for a bit. And this is exactly what movie goers must do if they are to have any chance of following this film. After an hour or so of being bombarded by (sometimes seemingly random) exposition, the pieces begin to fall into place - but only if you've been paying attention! Treating the audience with a decorum of intelligence, Tinker Tailor is the antithesis of (the admittedly very good) Mission: Impossible - Ghost Protocol.

Such a film lives or dies on its performances and Gary Oldman delivers a career best. It's beautifully understated but there's a lot of acting going on behind those eyes - calmly confident, ruthlessly efficient, a penultimate rationalist. In one wonderful scene, Smiley (Oldman) and some fellow agents are travelling in car in which is also trapped a fly. After each of the occupant's attempts to inflict violence on the insect, Smiley calmly opens the window and lets it out. We don't doubt that Smiley could kill the fly with ruthless precision and without a second thought but he chooses the most efficient and elegant solution available to him. This one scene - the simple winding of a car window - tells us everything we need to know about smiley. This is direction; this is acting.

8.5 out of 10

Posted by Sam Graham (Member # 2889) on 01-28-2012, 03:25 PM:

CINEMA: 13th Avenue Warren, Wichita, KS
AUDITORIUM: 6
PRESENTATION: Dolby Digital Cinema/THX
PRESENTATION PROBLEMS: None [Cool]

RATING: Three stars (out of four)

As the Warren's promo for Oscar's Lounge (the in-house bar) runs and a shot of the back sides of random people walking up the stairs appears, the guy from the couple sitting behind me exclaims "There's us!"

Same couple when the Expendables 2 trailer plays: "We need to go to the drive-in for that."

THE PLOT: Somebody runs away from the circus. Wackiness ensues.

This one's a thinker, all right. A British spy agency in the cold war days has a traitor in its midst. There's an obvious suspect we're all supposed to guess, of course. I'm pleased to say my second choice turned out to be correct.

It's slow moving but well performed and far more coherent than some of the recent stuff I've seen. And, as Stu noted, Oldman is outstanding.

Posted by Jonathan M. Crist (Member # 413) on 01-28-2012, 06:48 PM:

Tinker was originally a 7 episode 1979 BBC mini-series which aired here in the US on PBS. Alec Guiness had the Smiley role.

Posted by Jeff Taylor (Member # 443) on 02-27-2012, 03:43 PM:

...and he was so good in the part that I have to scratch my head as to why they remade it. Pick up the earlier version on dvd. It's worth seeing.