Well at long last we can now buy the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy DVD (and Blu-ray edition) after a lot of anticipation. I am not talking about the original series with Alec Guinness in the central role. I am of course talking about the 2011 film version featuring Gary Oldman and a number of other leading British actors including Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Colin Firth, Mark Strong and Benedict Cumberbatch.
This updated version is based loosely on the original book and the original TV series. However it is substantially different in many ways, so it is well worth watching even if you have already seen the original series.
Gary Oldman, who plays George Smiley, is clearly very pleased with the film because he says that it is an intelligent film that requires the audience to think and to pay attention. This is certainly very refreshing because a lot of films nowadays try and appeal to the masses, and are not exactly that complex or multi-layered.
Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is an adaptation of John Le Carre’s famous cold war spy thriller, and it is set in 1973. So there are no hi-tech gadgets that you might expect to see in modern day spy films. This is essentially a period piece that takes you back to an age before mobile phones and modern technology when people had to use their wits and their imagination to spy on and defeat the enemy.
Overall Tinker Soldier Tailor Spy is an excellent spy thriller and one that the British film industry can be really proud of. Yes it can be a little slow paced at times, just like the original series, and some viewers may find the storyline a little tricky to follow if they are not paying full attention, but it is definitely well worth seeing.
This is an old-style thriller that is up there with some of the classic spy thrillers from years gone by. I won’t talk about the actual plot because I don’t want to spoil it for people that haven’t yet seen it. All I will say is that it has received a lot of positive reviews, as well as 11 BAFTA nominations, so it has clearly been very well received.
If you would like to buy Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy on DVD or Blu-ray and watch this film yourself, you can do so by clicking on one of the links below:
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy DVD
- Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy Blu-ray (and DVD)
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