Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

John Le Carre's epic novel is brought to the big screen, directed by Thomas Alfredson and starring a whose who of British cinema with Gary Oldman putting in a performance that is already being talked up for an Oscar with support from Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Mark Strong and Toby Jones. This is based on the 1974 novel of the same name and tells the story of George Smiley played by Gary Oldman as he tries to identify the Soviet mole in the upper echelons of the British Secret Service.

The acting in this is awesome but the story is long, it was last told in a 6 hour mini-series and there is not much exposition in the two hours you are given. I have not read the book and would presume that if you have read it it will be even better as I have heard it is quite true to the original story. All of the actors in this do give excellent performances and if you can follow the story then you will really enjoy this film.

Overall I am going to give this 4 satrs, however it does come with the caveat that you have to give it a chance I heard from a couple of people that they found it long and boring. If this sounds like your sort of film then I think you will really enjoy it.

The Debt (2011)

My latest foray to the cinema was to see the new film starring Helen Mirren, I had very little knowledge of the story going or who else was actually in this film. It is based upon a true story but as I do not know the story it was pretty intriguing going in and by the end I had a good idea what was going to happen so there is no real surprises. However it does play with you a couple of times and keeps you wanting to see the conclusion.

This is the story of 3 Mossad agents, the covert intelligence agency in Israel, their mission is to capture a German war criminal played by Jesper Christensen, the agents are played by 2 actors one while they are young and older actors when the film starts 30 years later. Rachel is played by Jessica Chastain and Helen Mirren, David is played by Sam Worthington and Ciaran Hinds and Stefan is played by Martin Csokas and Tom Wilkinson. There are 2 stories the 1965 mission and 1997, which is present day in the film. The 1965 story is good old fashioned espionage with the 3 agents behind enemy lines getting to know each other and follow out their mission. Then there is present day when there is some fall out from the mission 30 years previously.

This is an entertaining film based upon a 2007 Israeli film of the same name and is actually well worth a watch, Helen Mirren is as Impressive as ever and apart from some issues with the older male characters and who they represented I really enjoyed this. Go and see it, I give it 4 solid stars.