Tinker, Tailer, Solider, Spy Gets New Featurette, Preview Clip, and Glowing Early Reviews
Posted 09.08.11 by Ryan
The thriller Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy had its official premiere at the Venice Film Festival, last weekend, and its debut left critics impressed. The Playlist called the movie "incredibly rich and perfectly constructed, sitting with The Conversation and The Ipcress File in the very upper reaches of the genre," while Movieline praised the "uniformly terrific ensemble cast" for their work in a movie that is "notable less for its complex plot than for the emotional context of each of its nested backstories-within-backstories."
Based on the 1974 novel by John le Carré, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy follows Gary Oldman as George Smiley, a semi-retired British intelligence agent who is tasked with finding a Soviet spy who has infiltrated the upper echelon of the British Secret Intelligence Service, or MI6. Coinciding with its premiere, a new featurette for the thriller has been released, which, instead of discussing the popular, 1979 BBC mini-series of Tinker that had Alec Guinness in the Smiley role and that many will compare the movie to, the featurette is more concerned with comparing Smiley to Britain's other famous literary superspy: James Bond. Oldman, LeCarre, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Toby Jones and director Tomas Alfredson all discuss the "anti-Bond".
Tinker's first preview clip was released by Empire prior to the movie's Venice debut, and involves MI6 head Control (Hurt) and Smiley (Oldman) discussing the search for the Soviet mole with agent Jim Prideaux (Green Lantern's Mark Strong).
Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy is preparing for a Septmeber 16 release in the U.K., but won't reach the U.S. until the end of the year. Originally slated for a U.S. bow on November 16, Focus Features recently decided to push the movie to a more Oscar-friendly date of December 9.
The thriller is the English-language debut for Alfredson, who previous movie was the Swedish horror adaptation of Let the Right One In. Peter Straughan (The Debt) and Bridget O'Connor (Sixty Six) adapted the screenplay. Tom Hardy (Inception, Warrior), Benedict Cumberbatch (BBC's Sherlock and the upcoming The Hobbit) and Ciarán Hinds (The Debt) co-star.