He'll never be warm, never function fully as a human being. Behind that phlegmatic exterior are hard eyes that have seen - and even approved - too much torture and killing. He was naturally dry and furtive, whereas Oldman is a hot-dog whose reticence here is a kind of stunt. Oldman is Circus agent George Smiley, who appeared in eight Le Carre novels and whom Guinness, I think, played definitively. The head of Britain's Secret Intelligence Service, "Control" (John Hurt) is forced out of the agency after he personally sends Jim on a covert mission. You have to think back to the days of double agents like Kim Philby, some of whom were actually triple agents or double-double agents, meaning they pretended to have turned against their country but were actually trading not-so-valuable intelligence for access to higher circles. You have to infer that it's the early '70s, and the Cold War is going strong that the Circus is MI6, the U.K.'s CIA that C stands for "Control," the only name given for its mysterious chief and that Karla isn't a woman but a Soviet spymaster, who has allegedly planted a mole in the Circus' upper echelon.
Why is the movie spy rated r movie#
The movie is chopped up into short scenes featuring people we don't know working for a circus - what? - and for someone called "C," and talking about a woman called Karla? Meanwhile, the star, Gary Oldman, doesn't say a word for the first 18 minutes. Most people will find the first 20 minutes of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy difficult to follow - I did, and I've read John le Carre's novel and seen the haunting 1979 BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness, although decades ago. With: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy Rated R for violence, some sexuality/nudity and language