Post
by Audley Strange » Sun Sep 18, 2011 9:52 pm
I'm just back from seeing this and a bit nonplussed by it all. The direction was ace, the cinematography was pretty good (though I thought the reliance of desaturated colour = 1970's was a bit much) the acting, such as there was, was impressive (except Gary Oldman who was doing his best Alec Guinness impression). But it, to me, seemed pointless. The climax seemed a bit abrupt and the lack of explanation as to why the Mole became the mole, which to me was fundamentally important and would have for audiences now, a great deal of resonance given the events of the last decade. That the main suspects in the movie say practically nothing for the entirety of it would have been fine if there was some identification of them as individuals. I felt the movie lacked that and really they could have put them in a tombola and any one of them could have been the culprit.
As I say I don't really see the point, who was this targetted towards? Certainly not a lot of the audience that were there tonight, since I witnessed quite a few walk outs, a guy in front of me spend most of the evening on Facebook and even someone who woke with a start, confused as they watched everyone leave.
Thus I would say it would be targetted towards people who are interested in the material and I don't think those folks, like myself would have thought it better than the book or even the slightly overlong BBC version. It's a strange anachronistic period piece and it seems like a weird choice, though it is a classic, to remake. I think even something like "The Spy Who Came in from the Cold" might have been a better choice
Mind you. The actor that played Ricky Tarr (Tom Hardy?) was tremendous and young Cumberbatch was fantastic as Peter Gwillam. However I love Le Carré and I am not certain that this did his material justice.
"What started as a legitimate effort by the townspeople of Salem to identify, capture and kill those who did Satan's bidding quickly deteriorated into a witch hunt" Army Man
. And then when they come back, they can 
