A brilliant adaptation by Peter Straughan and Bridget O’Connor of John le Carré’s 1970 novel, Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy.
During the cold war and after a disastrous operation in Budapest, the head of British intelligence, Control (John Hurt), steps down, convinced that one of the four lead roles in the operation is in actual fact a Russian mole. After a year in semi-retirement, ex-spy George Smiley (Gary Oldman) is brought back into the Cabinet Office on information that there is a Soviet Spy.
At an unsettling time for the British Secret Service, it falls to Smiley to uncover the mole.
Without the glamorous Bond style action we associate with a good spy movie, this film is clever and will have you at the edge of your seat as the mystery unfolds.