TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY (1979)

John le Carré's slow-burn spy thriller drips with dread based on words and information rather than action.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy would be old school if it weren't actually made during the Cold War. Unlike most modern spy thrillers, Tinker is almost all talk and little action. The setting is the Circus, the nickname for the British Secret Intelligence Service, an organization that has agents out in the field doing the dirty work, but at home, comes across as kind of a stodgy organization of power-hungry, back-stabbing bureaucrats that may have outstayed their welcome.

Something is amiss in the Circus. Specifically a mole is suspected. Not only is there a Russian spy within the agency, but this person is so embedded that he is said to be among those men at the very top of the rank and file. George Smiley (Alec Guinness), who had recently been booted by the new guard from his second-in-command position, is pulled back in to investigate which of these men (code named Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, etc. after the children's rhyme) is the spy within the spy agency. Exposing the agent is obviously a dangerous mission, but John le Carré's slow-burn tale drips with dread based on words and information rather than action, which makes for an interesting contrast with the Bond/Bourne-style of secret-agent thriller.

George Smiley is an odd protagonist. He wears big 70s glasses, which make his eyes large and blinky. He has a gentle grandfatherly-smile, and apparently the ladies love him. He is also a bit of a sad sack, as his colleagues jab him by constantly inquiring about his wife Ann, who is well-known to have slept around, including with his cohort Bill Haydon (the wonderfully slippery Ian Richardson). You'd almost think that his colleagues are vaguely patronizing towards Smiley, if it weren't for the fact that they are all visibly nervous about the information he is uncovering in his investigation. All of the men seem to know something, so that until the mole is revealed, the audience is kept guessing which of these sketchy yet powerful men is hiding the biggest secret.

The cast is all-around stellar. Bernard Hepton as Toby Esterhase, one of men under investigation who, despite his debonair fashionable clothes always seems vaguely nerve-wracked. Hywel Bennett's Ricki Tarr is a loose-cannon agent who is also a Lothario out in the field. Unlike in the 2011 version of the film, Tarr comes across as more of a creep than a romantic, yet still he seems like a ticking time-bomb of information. Ian Bannen is also as standout as Jim Prideaux, who is "sacrificed" out in the field in Prague, an incident which sets off the whole chain of events that may topple the hierarchy of the Circus.

But the heart and soul of the story is Smiley's young sidekick Peter Guillam (Michael Jayston), who may be of the new guard, but has the morals and goodness of a classic good-guy agent. Guillam despite the danger of the situation, is always there to do the dirty work for Smiley, and he gets some of the best moments. One of the shining moments of the whole series takes place over a cramped conference table, as Guillam is pulled into a confrontational meeting with the top Circus men that are under suspicion. Guillam is cool as a cucumber as he is grilled by the men who should be on his side, and it is the audience that is left sweating for his sake. It is in moments like this that Tinker, Tailor is simply superb, and you find yourself wondering no one seems to bother to make patient, complicated thrillers like this anymore.