Director Tomas Alfredson’s big-screen adaptation of John Le Carré’s novel
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier Spy (1974) constitutes the second filmization of the work, following an acclaimed 1979 miniseries starring Alec Guinness. Set in the early ’70s, this version recasts Gary Oldman in the Guinness role, as George Smiley, a septuagenarian English spy called out of retirement to assist his former colleagues in ferreting out a Soviet “mole,” rumored to have infiltrated the upper echelons of the British intelligence agency, referred to here as “the circus.”
Of all the ways to potentially fail in bringing its source author to the screen, Tinker avoids the...
Released:
2011
Rated:
R
Length:
127 mins