TINKER TAYLOR SOLDIER SPY (2011)

Director: Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Colin Firth and Tom Hardy
Rating: 15

In all honesty I have never watched a spy movie in my life, as I’ve never thought they’d be up my street. But I have a slight Tom Hardy obsession so I thought I’d give it a go, and I was pleasantly surprised…

Spy storylines are always pretty confusing in my opinion, but I’ll give explaining it a go. Set in the times of the cold war we are presented with an incident involving Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong), which will change everything for the MI6. Control (John Hurt) is the top dog of MI6 with George Smiley (Gary Oldman) as his right wing man. After both are forced into retirement Smiley is enjoying his free time until he is called upon to investigate the news that there is a Soviet agent acting as a double agent within MI6. There are a possible four suspects: Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Toby Esterhase (David Dencik), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds) and Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). Smiley must find out as quickly as he can who the double agent is with the help from Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch), Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy) and Mendel (Roger Lloyd-Pack).

I have to admit that I’m blonde and therefore don’t have that many brains about me (stereotypical but true) so I was worried about being completely lost watching this film. I had a little help from a friend who put some scenes in layman’s terms for me when I looked a little bewildered. Nonetheless, I managed to keep track of what was happening and it somehow grabbed me from my cosy sofa and dragged me into the world of secrecy and mild violence.

Once you understand what’s going on, it’s a highly gripping film. You just want to plunge yourself into the spy world and figure out who the double agent is. I’m not a fan of films where they make it far too obvious who could be the double agent/bad guy/liar etc but Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy certainly didn’t spoil the surprise. When they exposed the final outcome, I was completely in awe and I genuinely had not seen that coming.

This film has taught me that spy films are anything but boring, in fact the complete opposite. If you’re into spy films (most likely the blokes out there) or can just appreciate a well-made film then you should definitely get your secret agent suit on and give it a go.

Verdict: 4/5