When I saw the trailer for this movie, I could not wait to see it. Not having read the John le Carre book, I still expected to be fully involved in the story. Unfortunately, the big surprise for me, was the dullness of this film.  There were solid actors in the cast, such as John Hurt (V for Vendetta, Alien) as Control; Gary Oldman (The Dark Knight, Harry Potter franchise) as George Smiley and Colin Firth (The King’s Speech, A Single Man) as Bill Haydon. The film had a great look to it, the period being the cold war during the 1970’s. Sadly, I simply felt some of the scenes were executed poorly and the script was weak. The story has to do with Britain’s intelligence agency having a Russian mole, who might be deeply planted inside of its high ranking personnel. With a cast ensemble such as this one; if there was a good script, this movie could have been a good, cerebral challenge, that would have had the audience on the edge of their seats. I do want to point out that there were some scenes which were well done. Just why couldn’t there be more? After viewing this movie, I do not know if I will read the book.

2 2/3 stars

http://youtu.be/Aco15ScXCwA