Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (2011)

http://www.imdb.com/title/tt1340800/

So I went to watch it because I decided I couldn't complain about it if I didn't.

I was wrong. It wasn't a total ruination.

The short, twitter-version of the review goes - TinkerTailorSoldierSpy - Oldman exceptional, everything else (with a couple of honourable exceptions) a bit meh.

Gary Oldman is exceptional, really, I mean, even by his high standards ( spoilers )

and I'd be cool with him getting the Oscar, but if the rest of it (poss. exception set design) gets Oscars it'll just show how bad this year's set of films have been.

The honourable exceptions previously mentioned are ( spoilers )

The major problem is that, because it only runs to 2 hours 7 minutes, they've had to squash things and bend things, which is not going to work when your original book is 440-ish pages. But for some unknown reason, it's the female characters who have been hit hardest by these changes. ( Spoilery specifics )

I mean, there were some points where the film gets mega props, you know, actually engaging Russian speakers to play Russian speaking characters. I can't comment on the quality of the Russian or the Hungarian but I have hopes.

( Discussion of some location changes )

As I said previously, the changes in plot/character/stuff have been forced on them due to running time. Some of the choices made are thoroughly reasonable ( spoilers )

Some of them I'm neutral about ( Spoilers )

and some of them I just don't get ( spoilers )

Then there's the ones I understand why but dislike ( And here we get more spoilers )

( I will defend the film on one point )