F12: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy-Directed by Tomas Alfredson

"Got a rabbit to pull out of your hat, Percy?"

Do not waste your time with this film. Or the book that it is based on, by John le Carré. There I said it. And man does it feel good. I wanted to blast my disappointment during the film yesterday, but then remember how my pet peeve is people who are rude in movie houses. Seriously though kids, skip this one. This movie about all things espionage and is the complete opposite of why we love spy thrillers. There are no martinis. No kooky gadgets that explode or release smoke.  Fem Fatales that seduce the our secret agent man, only to hit him with a poison dart after a steamy shower scene? Nada. No high stakes poker games, no bowties and no ultra fast car chase scenes. This movie was not sexy, nor was it exciting. It was drab and dull and filled to the brim with confusion. You keep waiting for everything to click into place, and or for things to pick up, but they never do. Even the score was a struggle to digest. I was expecting a vintage spy film cast in the mold of Munich or The Debt, but instead got slapped with an old hybrid of High Street Blues and Matlock.

The premise is this: there is a mole. And that mole that has penetrated British Intelligence and is siphoning off intel to the Russians. Former agent, Mr. Smiley (Gary Oldman) is brought back into the fold to try to uncover the perp. Simple enough plot line. Armed with a star studded cast (Colin Firth, Toby Jones, Mark Strong) this movie should work. Sadly enough, it just doesn't. I should have known better, as I put down the book after 75 pages due to many of the same reasons listed above. The only noteworthy aspect of this project is the brain trust that put together the trailer for this film, hoodwinking my wife and I into believing that this movie would be worth our time and 20 bucks. In short, it was not.