Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy - quick review (1 Viewer)

[Ted Todorov]

Quite apart from whether TTSS is confusing or not, there is an assumption being made that making a confusing film is necessarily a mistake on the part of the filmmaker. Replace "confusing" with "disorienting" and plenty of films are deliberately so.

 

[Edwin-S]

Spoiler

I don't get why Prideaux shot Haydon. Was it revenge? Orders? It doesn't seem like he would have been ordered because he was no longer employed by British Intelligence. If it was revenge, why start crying while doing the deed? The whole ending left me with the impression that Haydon was a red herring. That he wasn't the actual mole, but that he was sacrificed so the real mole could ascend to the head of British Intelligence. I know that isn't the case, but the ending on this film was so badly constructed that it left me with the false impression that Smiley is the real mole.

 

[JLawren]

I think I'm joining the conversation rather late here but I just have one question (finally watched this movie last weekend and loved it). WHY did the British ministers get so on board with Project Witchcraft if they suspected there was a mole, which they must have enough to bring Smiley back out of retirement? Wouldn't the presence of a mole call into question any intelligence that came out of Project Witchcraft?? They knew the mole (if there was one) would be one of the men working on PW, so wouldn't they be more skeptical, or at least put PW on hold until the mole issue was resolved?

 

[Tommy R]

I think I'm joining the conversation rather late here but I just have one question (finally watched this movie last weekend and loved it). WHY did the British ministers get so on board with Project Witchcraft if they suspected there was a mole, which they must have enough to bring Smiley back out of retirement? Wouldn't the presence of a mole call into question any intelligence that came out of Project Witchcraft?? They knew the mole (if there was one) would be one of the men working on PW, so wouldn't they be more skeptical, or at least put PW on hold until the mole issue was resolved?

I can only judge by what I remember from the book and mini-series, I've only watched the movie once or twice, so I can't remember if details on that part of the plot were changed or not. But I believe that there wasn't any open suspicion that there was a mole at the point Percy went over Control's head with the witchcraft material. Plus the fact that Control was the only one who put it together that there was possibly a mole. Control being alone on his beliefs is why he was so covert in sending Jim on his mission to Czecho, and why after the fact no one really knew why Control sent Jim on the operation at all. Then after Control leaves the circus and dies, Connie Sachs brings up her theory that the local Russian cultural attache Polyakov is REALLY a high ranking Soviet offical running a mole in London; and Percy fires her when she wont let it go. I think that was one of the big themes of the story le Carre was going for; that the people who run the spy business often don't care about what's REALLY going on, even when there's quite a bit of evidence to suggest something nasty that they would rather not be true. The Ministry was blinded by greed from what the witchcraft material offered that they didn't want any potential scandal that a mole hunt would bring up. Lacon seems relucant to recruit Smiley for the investigation, but Tarr's story must've convinced the Ministry JUST ENOUGH to go ahead and seriously look into it. And they paid dearly from their earlier arrogance with accepting the witchcraft operation when Smiley uncovered the truth.

 

[Citizen87645]

I watched this tonight. I wasn't entirely confused, but there were certainly some details that weren't entirely clear, but were ultimately confirmed after reading other sources.

Great performance by Oldman.