Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6.

Director:

Tomas Alfredson

Writers:

Bridget O'Connor (screenplay), Peter Straughan (screenplay),

Stars:

Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy

Nominated for 3 Oscars. Another 34 wins & 67 nominations.

Cast

Cast overview, first billed only:
Mark Strong	...	Jim Prideaux
John Hurt	...	Control
Zoltán Mucsi	...	Magyar
Péter Kálloy Molnár	...	Hungarian Waiter
Ilona Kassai	...	Woman in Window
Imre Csuja	...	KGB Agent
Gary Oldman	...	George Smiley
Toby Jones	...	Percy Alleline
David Dencik	...	Toby Esterhase
Ciarán Hinds	...	Roy Bland
Colin Firth	...	Bill Haydon
Kathy Burke	...	Connie Sachs
Benedict Cumberbatch	...	Peter Guillam
Stephen Graham	...	Jerry Westerby
Arthur Nightingale	...	Bryant

Storyline

In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes badly wrong. It transpires that Control believed one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian agent - a mole - and the Hungary operation was an attempt to identify which of them it was. Smiley had been forced into retirement by the departure of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by a rogue agent, Ricky Tarr, that there was a mole. Smiley considers that the failure of the Hungary operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet intelligence) confirms this, and takes up the task of finding him.

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Plot Keywords:

hungary | intelligence | mole | spy | cold war | 

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Taglines:

The enemy is within.

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Genres:

Drama | Mystery | Thriller

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Certificate:

14A

Details

Official Sites:

Official site Official site [Germany]

Country:

France UK Germany

Language:

English Russian Hungarian French

Release Date:

16 September 2011 (UK)

Also Known As:

La taupe

Filming Locations:

Victoria and Albert Museum, South Kensington, London, England, UK

Box Office

Budget:

£20,000,000 (estimated)

Opening Weekend:

$310,562 (USA) (9 December 2011)

Gross:

$24,104,113 (USA) (16 March 2012)

Company Credits

Production Co:

StudioCanal, Karla Films, Paradis Films

Technical Specs

Runtime:

127 min

Sound Mix:

Datasat Dolby Digital

Color:

Color

Aspect Ratio:

2.35 : 1

Did You Know?

Trivia

Gary Oldman based his performance as George Smiley on a line from the 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' novel: "George is like a swift, Ann once told Haydon in George's hearing. He lowers his temperature until it's the same as the room around it. Then he doesn't lose heat by adjusting." Tomas Alfredson further compared Smiley to a turtle, "because the turtle has so much of its body hidden inside a shell; it is fixed, and it doesn't have a lot of different expressions."

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Goofs

During their secret meeting when Big Ben is visible through the window, the hands on the clock face jump forward about 3 hours within the space of about 30 seconds.

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Quotes

[first lines]
Control: [opening door] You weren't followed?
Jim Prideaux: No.
Control: Better come in.
Control: Trust no one, Jim. Especially not in the mainstream.

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Connections

Followed by Smiley's People

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Soundtracks

Land Du Valsignade
Written by Ragnar Althen, Elisabet Bjorklund
Performed by Jussi Bjorling

User Reviews

The Fact It's Uncinematic Is A Major Problem

John Le Carre is without doubt one of the literary greats of the late 20th Century . A master of complex story telling his novels are often composed of characters standing around discussing complicated geo-political situations and the human condition . This means that his novels are fundamentally uncinematic , a fact reflected that so little of his work has been adapted to the silver screen . With this adaptation of his 1974 novel I doubt if anyone was expecting a James Bond thriller and I know I wasn't but even so you're struck as to how a Le Carre thriller doesn't lend itself to mainstream cinema

You can't fault the film for its production values . It contains a who's who of prestigious big hitting British character actors such as Oldman , Hurt and Firth alongside up and coming peers such as Hardy and Cumberbatch . We also get a host of under rated actors in Strong and Burke and at a casting level none of this can be faulted . The look of the film is fantastic with the brownish dull hues reflecting both Communist Eastern Europe and run down Britain in the early 1970s and a day after seeing the movie my abiding memory of the film is the cinematography

The problem is that - and I'm afraid to admit this - is that I didn't have a clue what was going on most of the time . A British agent is shot and caputured in Hungary and MI6 believes he was set up by a mole . I understood this but then we cut to a character after character discussing who the mole might be , do we have a mole and we don't have a mole and very soon I was very lost . This film topped the film charts in Britain for a grand total of three weeks and one suspects by way of a backhanded compliment many people went to the cinema for a second and third time in order to unravel the plot . This is all well and good but illustrates the fact highly regarded novels often don't lend themselves to great cinema . Let's not forget two of the most memorable movies of the 1970s THE GODFATHER and JAWS were based on novels dismissed as trash