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Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – I’ll start this review by the admission that I have never seen the original series, so cannot compare Gary Oldman to Alec Guinness, even though it feels like the former is trying to do a cod-impression of the latter and I kept waiting for him to say “These aren’t the droids you’re looking for.”
As the film begins, Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) goes to see Control (John Hurt) who tells him that a Hungarian man is coming with the name of the mole that the Russians have planted in the high echelons of the British intelligence service, right at the top of “The Circus” and that they have been ther for some time. He adds, “There’s a rotten apple, Jim. You’ll have to find it.”.
The whole thing is known as “Operation Witchcraft” and the Soviet source is being housed at a secret London address to keep him safe.
We later learn that the mole can only be one of five men, and that George Smiley (Oldman) is brought out of semi-retirement and tasked with tracking him down. He choose to work with Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) and Mendel (Roger Lloyd Pack), the investigation into which begins by going into Control’s flat and finding pictures of the agents taped to chess pieces on his desk.
The film has a perfect ’70s tinge of smoky offices where the walls will reek of tobacco, which the encoding doesn’t process perfectly. Alas, what started as being a film I was really looking forward to ended up being purely a lot of stylish-looking shots with slow panning across or slow zooming-in and everyone looking incredibly serious.
Smiley goes to interview everyone who might know something it’s all “let’s have a scene of two people here”, then “let’s have a scene of two different people there” and then “let’s have another scene of different people here” and so it goes on until things slightly come together.
By the time the mole was revealed, I completely failed to care.
Gary Oldman has deserved a Best Actor nomination for a lot of films in the past, but this is not one of them. The film didn’t deserve to win BAFTAs Best Adapted Screenplay or Outstanding British Film, either.
Go to page 2 for the presentation and extras.
Presented in 2.35:1 and in 1080p high definition, as I emntioned earlier, there are flaws in the encoding process so it doesn’t look quite as good as it should do. The rest of the time it does evoke the ’70s period perfectly well.
The sound is in 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, for which I got the 5.1 DTS version, and delivers nothing out of the ordinary for a drama with little or no audio challenges.
The extras are as follows:
- Featurettes (9:08): I know the word ‘featurettes’ indicates that they’re brief, but only nine minutes across all four? As such, the chat from the cast members is too brief to be of any real use.
There’s one about George Smiley; then Inside The Circus – the home of the Secret Service; Shadow World talks generally about the film while, John le Carré, obviously is the guy who wrote it.
- Interviews (24:21): Four again: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy and one with director Tomas Alfredson and writer Peter Straughan.
These are Q&As with a caption ‘asking’ the questions and those onscreen then giving the answers. I guess it’s the most simple way to do it.
- John le Carré interview (29:43): Separate and done in a conventional style with an off-camera interviewer, although I’m not sure who’s asking the questions. A worthy watch if you’re a fan of his work.
- Deleted scenes (5:43): Five here, the second being a very non-descript one featuring a green screen, which looks like they filmed ‘the circus’ in that way rather than creating it in a studio (that said, the lift scenes are clearly green screened). There are no scenes which need to be put back in.
- UK Premiere featurette (4:47): Talking heads say a lot of this and that whilst on the red carpet.
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy – Sky Movies Special (20:30): Does what it says on the tin. Rather like clips mixed in with the interviews.
- Photo Gallery: 20 pics.
- Audiobooks: Chapter One for each of “The Honourable Schoolboy” (54:15) and “Smiley’s People” (55:32). Presumably only the first chapter so as to serve as a taster to make you buy the whole thing. They are read by Michael Jayston.
- Audio commentary: from director Tomas Alfredson and main man Gary Oldman.
- Audio description: does what it says on the tin.
- Teaser trailer (1:20): In 1.85:1 and open-matte.
- Full trailer (1:54): In 2.35:1 and, for a trailer, it doesn’t spoil things, which is quite a rarity.
The menu mixes clips from the film with a very small piece of looped theme music and the number of chapters is the usual embarrassment from Optimum with a paltry 12 over the 128-minute running time.
In addition there’s a series of trailers that come before the main menu. Why do studios do this? Have they forgotten what the extras menu is for? You have to fast-forward through them too, as they’re not chaptered. Total farce. As such, I’m not listing them here.
At least there are English subtitles included.
When it comes to the menu system, I don’t know if it’s just my Blu-ray player (Samsung BD-P1500), but it’s meant to replicate the dumb waiter in the film that runs up the centre of the building and when I select a different option, rather than ‘action’ the effect, it first has to seek the bit of film that shows that animation rather than just running it straight away. Any advice, please?
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is out now on Blu-ray, Limted Edition Blu-ray and DVD.
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FILM CONTENT PICTURE QUALITY SOUND QUALITY EXTRAS |
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Detailed specs:
Cert: 
Running time: 127 minutes
Year: 2011
Distributor: Optimum
Cat no: OPTBD2077
Released: January 30th 2012
Chapters: 12
Picture: 1080p High Definition
Sound: 5.1 DTS-HD Master Audio, DTS 5.1, Dolby Digital 5.1
Languages: English
Subtitles: English
Widescreen: 2.35:1 (Super 35)
Disc Format: BD50
Director: Tomas Alfredson
Producers: Tim Bevan, Eric Fellner and Robyn Slovo
Screenplay: Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan (based on the novel by John le Carré)
Music: Alberto Iglesias
Cast:
George Smiley: Gary Oldman
Control: John Hurt
Bill Haydon: Colin Firth
Jim Prideaux: Mark Strong
Peter Guillam: Benedict Cumberbatch
Roy Bland: Ciarán Hinds
Percy Alleline: Toby Jones
Ricki Tarr: Tom Hardy
Toby Esterhase: David Dencik
Oliver Lacon: Simon McBurney
Jerry Westerby: Stephen Graham
Mendel: Roger Lloyd-Pack
Connie Sachs: Kathy Burke
Bryant: Arthur Nightingale
Belinda: Amanda Fairbank-Hynes
Fawn: Peter O’Connor
Magyar: Zoltán Mucsi
Hungarian Waiter: Péter Kálloy Molnár
Reviewer of movies, videogames and music since 1994. Aortic valve operation survivor from the same year. Running DVDfever.co.uk since 2000. Nobel Peace Prize winner 2021.
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