Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Blu-ray Review

• 23rd Jan 2012

Deserving of all the praise it got, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy manages to tell a tale of the life of spies without having to succumb to what we may expect from modern day action franchises. That’s not to say that we don’t like those films, but that we can also truly appreciate this as well.

Gary Oldman heads up a very impressive cast of characters working for British Intelligence known as “The Circus”. At the top of this organisation is Control (John Hurt) who it turns out has his suspicions about the five head honchos working around him including right hand man George Smiley (Oldman). But once Control and Smiley are forced out of their jobs the suspicions are confirmed by a field agent (the forever rising, Tom Hardy) and Smiley is brought back in by the powers that be to figure out whom the mole may be.

Using his inside man (also on the rise, Benedict Cumberbatch) Smiley slowly starts to unravel the mystery as well as the past and we are drawn into a web of betrayal and persistent paranoia among the men.

Oldman is on top form presenting a character very much the opposite of what we have seen from him in the past. It’s nice he gets the opportunity to remind us of how articulate he is with looks and small gestures. It’s a character worth investing the time in just watching his every tick because everything counts in this quiet performance.

To go on about the rest of the cast may take some time, but there are no rotten apples in this basket, all superbly under the wing of Let the Right One In director, Tomas Alfredson. You’ll be hard pressed to find another more obvious choice for awards contention this year.

The extras include a few short behind the scenes pieces, a half hour interview with the original author, a few deleted scenes and a commentary from the director and Oldman. The commentary is worth a listen, even if it is fairly light. It’s a wonder though that there are not more deleted scenes. Either they are saving them for a lengthier cut; or the script really did condense the book right down.

Steven Hurst