Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) Review

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is a film that lacks clarity and structure. A near constant jumping around of time periods and obscurity create a feeling of confusion and, I must confess, made me feel very lost. Remember the 1992 film Unforgiven? That was a film with a subpar script and a subpar story that featured fantastic performances. This film suffers from the same condition. Of course given the caliber of actors in this film (Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong) saying that they give great performances is like saying that chocolate is sweet.

I hate to do this but I can hardly remember a thing about the film and so much trouble following its plot that I am left with either not including a synopsis or copying it from another source. I pride myself on (almost) never having to do this but I want to be fair to it so I will have to take it from IMDB:

"In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control (John Hurt), 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. George Smiley (Gary Oldman) 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 (Tom Hardy), 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. Through the efforts of Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley obtains information that eventually leads him to Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), the agent at the heart of the Hungary fiasco. He is then able to put together the pieces of the puzzle, which leads him to the identity of the mole and the true intent of Operation Witchcraft."

A major issue is that too many characters are introduced in too rapid a succession. In one single scene we meet every single senior member of the organization and are hardly even able to follow what their names are, for one thing, and what they're purpose is for another. This is a cheap and lazy way to bring in all this information at once and I sat there in the theater scratching my head as I wondered where a character came from and if they had already introduced them and saying, "wait, didn't that guy get shot?"

Unmemorable and confusing Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy leaves much to be desired.

★1/2