Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy

I have seen every James Bond movie at least four times (except Quantum of Solace).  I mention that to point out just how much I enjoy spy movies.  I have also read most of the original James Bond books, as well as several spy novels by Robert Ludlum and John le Carré; I mention that to prove that I understand the difference between a James Bond movie and an actual spy film.  The reality (according to the fiction I have read) of espionage is that unremarkable people patiently do a lot of work as subtly as they can, with potentially Earth-shaking results.  When I saw the first trailer for Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy --- based on one of the best action-free spy stories ever --- and saw the excellent cast, I knew I would be in for a treat.  A subtle, quiet treat, but a treat nonetheless.

Above: an action sequence in the film, shown in real time

Control (John Hurt) is dead.  The former head of British Intelligence (AKA SIS, AKA MI6, AKA --- in le Carré's books, anyway --- The Circus) died in disgrace.  Convinced that there was a high-level mole feeding information to the Soviets, Control approved a mission to bring over a defector from the Eastern bloc that allegedly had hard proof as to the mole's identity.  The mission was a failure; the MI6 agent, Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), was identified and shot (not dead, though), and an international incident was born.  Control and his right hand man, George Smiley (Gary Oldman), were forced into retirement.  The rest of Control's elite inner circle of intelligence men simply moved up a few rungs and have been ruling ever since.

First new rule: reclining seats for the Q-Bert room

After Control's death, Smiley is approached by someone in the British government to investigate a claim made by a Circus operative, Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), that there was a mole in The Circus; the incident that made Tarr suspicious happened after Smiley was sacked, so it seems that A) Control was right all along and B) Smiley couldn't have been the leak, since he had no access to Tarr's situation.  Smiley is tasked with finding the double agent amongst the Circus elite, but doing so without The Circus' knowledge, and without direct access to The Circus himself.  That may sound difficult, but that's because it is.  And also because Control was certain that the mole had to be one of his inner circle.  He even assigned them each a code name; "Tinker" was Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), "Tailor"  was Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), "Soldier"  was Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds), "Poorman"  was Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and "Beggarman" was Smiley.  Even the most trusted spies in The Circus were suspect.  But if we know who Tinker, Tailor, and Solider are, who is Spy?  That's what Smiley's trying to find out.

...and probably who's on the receiving end of this shot

The acting in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is very low-key, but also quite good.  I really liked Gary Oldman's portrayal of Smiley; it is difficult to make a deliberate, contemplative character come to life on film, but I thought Oldman's Smiley was brilliantly cold and calculating, but also jealous and lonely.  His performance was more inaction than action, but I think that's what draws you in.  The rest of the cast (which is pretty huge) is good, but the silence of Smiley is really what this film is about.  Tom Hardy was good as the spy equivalent of a blunt instrument with awful, awful hair. 

Shouldn't spy jackets conceal things better than this?

Rivaling that hair was Mark Strong's combover, although it was nice to see Strong playing a non-villain for a change.  It turns out that he's still fun to watch, even when he's not evil.  John Hurt was probably the most explosive character in the movie, which seems a little odd, given that he's in his seventies, but just imagine him being loud and cranky and you'll get the gist of his performance.

"Get off my lawn!"

The other fairly emotive character in the film was current holder of the coveted "Most British Name" award, Benedict Cumberbatch.  His character was understandably nervous, but I felt he was a little too high-strung at times.

I just like saying his name.  Try it: Cum-ber-batch!

The rest of the cast was made of fine, establish British actors.  Colin Firth is the most noteworthy, but I thought Toby Jones and Ciarán Hinds also gave solid performances.  I also found it interesting to see Konstantin Khabenskiy in a film released in the West that was not directed by Timur Bekmambetov; Khabenskiy basically played the stereotype of a hard-drinking Russian jerk, but he's pretty good at that.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is the first major English-language film from director Tomas Alfredson, and I think he was a good stylistic match to the source material.  For some reason, most of the Swedish directors I have seen have excelled at slowly-paced, subtle films, and that's exactly what this story needed.  I liked how quiet and claustrophobic this movie felt at times, and I thought Alfredson did a great job with the actors.  My only problem was how dense the narrative was.  I like that Alfredson didn't dumb the story down or over-explain things, but this is a movie that demands your attention --- and if you're not sure that it makes sense, you're going to need a few viewings and a flow chart to make a definite conclusion. 

Because Smiley sure as hell won't tell you

As much as I enjoyed this subtle, complex film, I wasn't as blown away as I had hoped.  Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is definitely a solid movie, but it's not the sort of movie that I want to re-watch in the immediate future.  It's very, very slow --- and I think that pace fits the story well --- so I will need to be in just the right mood to watch this again.  There's isn't anything about the film that I downright disliked, but (aside from the overall consistent quality) there wasn't anything that I positively loved, either.  Oldman was great, but his role is almost an anti-presence in the film; who he isn't spending time with and what he's not saying aloud are kind of his defining traits.  While that was artfully done, it's not the sort of performance that amps me up.  Still, this is a very cerebral spy drama.  It might not exactly "thrill," but it is one of the best examples of what espionage is (probably) truly like.

Wanted

Casting Angelina Jolie in a comic book movie is so obvious, I can't believe that it took until 2008 for somebody to make it happen.  She's already played the physically (and proportionally) impossible part of Lara Croft, so why not take on the world of anti-gravity breasts and zipperless spandex unitards that is comic books?  It's not like they're going to take away her Oscar; Halle Berry already proved that with Catwoman.  So why not have a little mindless fun, right?

Wanted is a comic book adaptation, but the property is not a long-established one, so the story is new to most viewers.  Wesley Gibson (James McAvoy) plays an average Joe living a below-average life.  He hates his job, he hates his boss, he hates his girlfriend, he hates his best friend (who is sleeping with his girlfriend), he hates the father that left him as an infant, and he hates the panic attacks he gets when any of these irritate him more than usual.  One day, Fox (Jolie) arrives and tells Wesley that his life is in danger and that his late father (David O'Hara) was a super-powered assassin.  It takes a cross-town shootout and car chase to make that seem plausible, but it works.  Fox takes Wesley to The Fraternity, an ancient secret society of assassins.  The group's head, Sloan (Morgan Freeman), explains that Wesley must assume the mantle of his father and avenge him, or Wesley will surely be killed by his father's assassin, Cross (Thomas Kretschmann).  Naturally, this takes some convincing.  In one of the movie's more memorable moments, Wesley is given a gun (for the first time) and told to shoot the wings off of some flies --- or he will be dead in thirty seconds.  Wesley begins to panic and the world slows down for a few moments, until he shoots.  Surprisingly (well, not really.  It's a movie.  But it would be surprising if you were Wesley), he has shot the wings off.  It turns out that Wesley's panic attacks were the misunderstood symptom of his body rushing extraordinary amounts of blood and adrenaline to his brain.  This superhuman ability can make Wesley able to move faster and notice more than average humans.  I guess that's a little more plausible than a radioactive spider bite.  This ability and natural talent are why Wesley is uniquely qualified to be the man who takes Cross out.

After a brief detour to quit his job and knock out his best friend, Wesley begins to train in earnest.  He is trained in marksmanship by the Gunsmith (successful rapper and emotionless actor Common), knives by the Butcher, how to take punishment by the Repairman, explosives by the Exterminator (Konstantin Khabenskiy), and the assassin life in general by Fox.  One of the important lessons in The Fraternity is the secret of the Loom of Fate.  This loom stitches a fabric that hides a binary code in the missed stitches.  The code spells out names, and The Fraternity kills the people whose names are stitched by the loom.  Yes, that's right...these international super-powered assassins are taking their cues from a magic loom.  Fox justifies this by saying that Fate wants these people dead, so if you "kill one, and maybe save a thousand."  Maybe.  Wesley is eventually experienced enough to take on Cross, but that just starts a whole new set of problems for Wesley.

The acting in this movie is pretty good for an action movie.  James McAvoy handles the lead role well, transforming from wuss to bad-ass in less than two hours, but still maintaining his charm.  He's a little whiny for the first bit of the film, but that has more to do with the character and the writing than his acting.  Angelina Jolie plays a supporting role in the movie, but it's a pretty big supporting role.  Her job here is basically to look sexy and cool, so it's not exactly her most demanding work.  Still, she look comfortable as an action star and plays the exasperated instructor to McAvoy well.  Morgan Freeman gets a rare opportunity to indulge his bad boy side as the leader of the assassins, but he is still playing his typical wise man role.  In other words, he's Morgan Freeman (which is awesome) and gets to swear in this movie.  Konstantin Khabenskiy makes his English-language debut after working with director Timur Bekmambetov on several Russian-language films (including the excellent Nightwatch).  He is just the adorable Russian guy here, but he's likable.  Terrence Stamp makes a brief appearance, and his presence exudes a sense of calm cool to a movie that is all about big and loud.  Sure, he deadpans all his dialogue, but it suits his character.  The rest of the cast turns in decent, but not particularly noteworthy performances, with the exception of Common, who still hasn't convinced me that he should act.

Visually, this film is amazing.  I remember being nervous about the film after watching the previews, but the special effects looked great in the context of the film.  Timur Bekmambetov has a gift for stunning visuals, but this movie is especially impressive.  The man can direct action, too, which is a big plus.  I think this movie's greatest strength is the variety of the action sequences.  There are a lot of shoot-out scenes (which makes sense, given Wesley's character), but they offer a lot of small but important variations.  As the film goes on, Wesley plays a larger and more impressive part in these scenes, until the inevitable huge shoot-'em-up ending.  It was interesting how some fairly subtle clues about Wesley's father are laid out in early action scenes, too.  Heck, I'm even okay with the ridiculousness of the "curved bullet" idea that is so central to most of these scenes.  Aside from the shoot-outs, though, there are a lot of other high quality action scenes.  The driving stunts are far beyond over-the-top, but their ridiculousness actually fits the action in the movie.  And there's some knife fights.  That's always a plus. 

Wanted is adapted from the comic of the same name by Mark Millar, who also wrote Kick-Ass.  This movie takes only the very basic principle of the comic and then makes its own story from there.  That's not a bad move on the screenwriter's part; the comic has Wesley and The Fraternity as super-villains, so there is no true hero to the story.  This script tries to show some heart and does a great job making these characters far more sympathetic than they are in the source material.  That makes this a rare exception, where the Hollywood version of something is far more palatable than the original material.  Of course, the whole "bending bullets" and Loom of Fate thing are absolutely ridiculous additions.  The magic loom is particularly stupid and I am amazed that some screenwriter came up with that as a story element.  It's even more amazing that the idea made the final cut of the film.  The clumsiness with that aspect of the writing (how do we make assassins look like good guys?  Two words: magic loom!) adds quite a bit of lameness to the movie, but it's not a fatal flaw.  Like the comic that it is based on, Wanted was never about the story so much as it was about the ain't-it-cool moments.  In that regard, this movie definitely succeeds.