The year is 1973, and the Cold War is happening in England. A guy, going by the codename, “Control,” sends field agent Jim Prideaux to meet a Hungarian general and potential defector.

The scene switches to a few Hungarian men, speaking their native language. Their meeting does not go well. If that’s not bad enough, one of the men takes out a gun and starts shooting.

Control and his deputy, George Smiley, must retire. Control also dies right after. Then a new head is chosen. His name is Sir Percy Alleline.

There is a meeting where a group of men discuss something called “Operation Witchcraft.” They need to investigate that issue.

Percy Alleline and Deputy Roy Bland meet this guy, Oliver Lacon, who is a Permanent Undersecretary. They discuss a potential safehouse to meet at where they can talk about this “witchcraft” situation.

Meanwhile, field agent Ricky Tarr is in hiding since he committed many murders. He calls Lacon to tell him about a mole in a circus. Lacon then asks Smiley to investigate. Smiley decides to have his assistants, Peter Guillam and Inspector Mendel, to aid him.

However, Smiley makes Guillam steal personal records and other important materials from the circus’ slush fund accounts. He discovers a lot of important details, including a payment record to “Mr. Ellis,” which is one of Prideaux’s identities.

Simultaneously, Smiley meets this woman, Connie Sachs, and interviews her. Sachs reveals that Soviet cultural attache Alexai Polyakov served in the military. She suspects that he ran a mole in London.

Later, Smiley returns to London and sees Tarr in his home. Tarr states that he needed to trail Boris, a Russian trade delegate in Istanbul.

Unfortunately, Tarr harasses Boris’s wife and fellow agent, Irina. However, the two have an affair, anyway. But at some point, Irina has had enough with him.

Not long after, the local station chief gets killed and Irina gets abducted. Stakes are on the rise.

This movie really did not draw me in that much. The story was hard to follow. Scenes and points-of-view switched too quickly and frequently.

The conflict was somewhat strong. But like with certain other thrillers, the characters were often too quiet.

I actually stopped halfway through the movie, which is around 2 hours long. Normally, if a movie is engaging, 2 hours isn’t a problem.

However, with this one, it just lagged, and I hardly had any idea what was going on. I actually looked up the plot on Wikipedia to help me understand the story and narrate it in this post. Of course, all the words are my own.

There were a few exceptions of positive moments. One was when Smiley and Sachs were having a nice conversation as if they were about to fall in love. Another was when Irina finally stood up for herself.

But overall, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was not such a good watch for me. There is a book of this, and maybe I would’ve understood it better had I read the novel first. But even then, a lot of changes were likely made as with any book-to-film adaptation.

I give this movie 2.5 out of 5 stars.