January 19, 2012

Mixed Reviews: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy



I’ve heard a lot of talk about this film, and none of it has been good.

Talk like: “there’s two hours of my life that I’ll never get back” and “take someone really, really smart, or you just won’t get it” (I heard that one on a TV review, so it wasn’t as insulting as it sounds.)

The reviews can’t all be negative, can they?

Not according to Rotten Tomatoes. In fact, 84% of the reviews on the site have been positive and 64% of the audience liked it as well.

Ann Hornaday from the Washington Post said:

“It's a 1970s story told in 1970s style, an unrepentant un-reboot so old school that it feels subversively new.”

Thomas Caldwell from Cinema Autopsy said:

“Swedish director Tomas Alfredson delivers the same diffused visual style and melancholic atmosphere in this new adaptation of John le Carré's 1974 novel that he so successfully employed on Let the Right One In.”

Manohla Dargis from the New York Times said:

“The story, skillfully mined from Mr. le Carré's labyrinthine book and set in 1973, is a pleasurably sly and involving puzzler - a mystery about mysteries within mysteries.”

Richard Knight from Knight at the Movies said:

“Densely plotted and edited with the assumption that fickle, easily distracted audiences will keep up and not lag behind. And woe be to the moviegoer who answers the call of nature.”



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4 comments:

  1. The miniseries is incredibly boring -- I may give this a shot, since it's only two hours long.

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  2. The cast looks spectacular... but that may be its only redeeming quality. I'll have to see when it arrives on DVD if I feel like it deserves a look or not.

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  3. I'll probably wait for DVD so I can screen the content. But with that cast I can't imagine how you'd go wrong.

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