BEFORE: I want to take a minute and talk about television, since last night's film was based on a TV show, and tonight's film was previously adapted as a TV mini-series. We used to have this time period called "summer", during which the TV networks would sort of give up and run repeats, and this enabled most people to have some free time, go on holiday, or just relax. But then cable networks started running new programming during the summer, and after that the major networks felt they had to as well, in order to stay competitive. SO nowadays there's really no break, they all keep working during the summer - the only problem is, they're all running crap.
Think about how good a show needs to be to premiere in September - then think about the next level down, these are the "midseason replacements" that debut in January. So if a show premieres in late May on one of the big four networks, you can bet that it probably stinks. I'm going to use this summer primarily to catch up on shows dating back to February (the backlog is more than my DVRs can handle, so I've got a pile of VHS tapes). The only new TV shows I'm planning to watch this summer are "MasterChef", "Next Food Network Star", "Top Shot: All Stars", and "America's Got Talent". Oh, wait, "Futurama" and "Bizarre Foods", but that's it. The rest can go screw.
Getting back to spy films, who turns up in this one but Benedict Cumberbatch, and I swear I didn't realize that would happen when I decided to drop "Star Trek: Into Darkness" into the mix.
THE PLOT: In the bleak days of the Cold War, espionage veteran George Smiley is forced from semi-retirement to uncover a Soviet agent within MI6.
AFTER: Well, yesterday I was at a disadvantage because I knew too much about the source material, and tonight I'm at a disadvantage because I didn't know enough, not having read the novel by John Le Carré. Or seen the mini-series with Alec Guinness, for that matter. So I was floundering for most of the film, because it seemed mostly confusing and moved at a snail's pace, so I kept falling asleep. It's a holiday weekend and I'm caught up on sleep, so I have to blame the film. Yet somehow this film made it to the list of "1,001 Films to See Before You Die", so I have to wonder about that.
It's definitely too talky, that's part of the problem. A spy movie's supposed to be about shootouts and car chases, no? And where are the cool gadgets? Actually, maybe this is what the real intelligence game is like - hours spent listening to wiretaps, hoping to glean scraps of information - maybe so, but that doesn't make for a compelling film.
But if I watch a film and then have to read the summary on IMDB or Wikipedia to find out what happened, then again I have to say that the film failed to make things clear. My head is swimming trying to figure out who was really working for whom, and who the mole really was, and wondering how one goes about making international intrigue so flipping boring.
Maybe I might get something out of this if I watched it a second or third time, but I don't have that luxury. I'm just going to assume that British agents in the 1970's spent all their time chasing shadows and sleeping with each other's wives (and boyfriends).
Also starring Gary Oldman (last seen in "The Contender"), Toby Jones (last seen in "Les Miserables (1998)), Colin Firth (last seen in "Girl With a Pearl Earring"), Mark Strong (last seen in "The Eagle"), John Hurt, Ciaran Hinds (last seen in "In Bruges"), Tom Hardy (last seen in "This Means War").
RATING: 3 out of 10 attaché cases
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