Cold war tensions heat up Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

The storyline revolves around George Smiley (Gary Oldman), a retired agent asked to find a mole in the “Circus,” what he and the other agents call British Intelligence. Apparently, someone is leaking documents and secrets to the Soviets, and George starts by investigating the shooting of Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), who was sent to Hungary to obtain information from a General willing to sell Soviet secrets. Though Jim gets shot as the exchange goes awry, he lives. Later in the film, we learn he is redeployed and has started a new life as schoolteacher. The attempt to assassinate him holds a key to discovering the mole.

Much of the movie is told as a flashback as George slowly connects evidence to fellow agents Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) through information he obtains from Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), a rogue agent who first reported the presence of a mole. The numerous flashbacks and the large cast of characters makes it hard to untangle the connections, even as George’s investigation sheds some light on the conspiracy involving “Witchcraft,” the secret program that involves trading British secrets to the Soviets and then trading those Soviet secrets to the U.S.

Without having read the book, the plot machinations can be a little hard to follow. Though the two-hour film isn’t always suspenseful, it is particularly well-executed cold war thriller. Oldman is terrific as the reserved George Smiley, a British gentleman so pensive and reserved he can’t even reveal the grief he feels after he finds out his wife is having an affair. And the movie successfully depicts the time period, capturing the paranoia that reigned during an era when the U.S. and British were constantly trying to keep tabs on the Soviets, often deploying secret agents and sending them on hazardous missions. While the movie’s relevancy might not be readily apparent, it’s so well-crafted, that’s a minor complaint.