Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy: A mini-review

 “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” is a 2011 espionage/mystery film based on John Le Carré’s novel of the same title. Set in London in the early 1970s, the film follows the quest of veteran MI6 official George Smiley (Gary Oldman), called out of retirement by the Civil Service, to expose a Soviet double agent hiding among MI6’s—the Circus, in their own spyspeak--top ranks. With help from a younger Circus fixture named Peter Guillam (played by Benedict Cumberbatch), Smiley surreptitiously trails the mole following leads from a botched mission in Budapest authorized by the deceased Chief.

 

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Smiley was famously portrayed by Sir Alec Guinness in a 1979 BBC series, and the more senior of Le Carré fans frequently compare Guinness’ portrayal with that of Oldman. The new Smiley holds his own, however; only an actor of Oldman’s caliber can express cold, intense cunning behind a pair of horn-rimmed bifocals. Also, there’s a bit of personal amusement watching Oldman schooling Cumberbatch (Sherlock?) in the art of sleuthing.

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The director, Tomas Alfredson, didn’t intend the film as easy viewing: It’s anti-James Bond, so to speak. Condensing a Le Carré novel into a single film is a feat in itself, and screenwriters Bridget O'Connor and Peter Straughan did a terrific job at preserving suspicion and anxiety without making the film too weighty. Still, one needs to turn on the subtitles to get hold of all the British spy lingo peppered throughout.

 

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To sum it up, “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” benefits from an intelligent script, with characters played by intelligent actors, and will probably earn Le Carré plenty of new fans. An excellent showcase of drama and suspense, it’s considered one of the best mystery films of 2011.

 I’m Zachary Wood, Orlando resident and a huge enthusiast of mystery fiction. Visit this Google+ page for more of my thoughts and insights about these arresting works.

The greatest sleuths, as seen on TV

Fans of mystery fiction would agree with me: Some of the greatest private eyes in fiction are not found in books. They are, or were, in TV screens, solving one complex, controversial crime after another, week after week. My favorites through the years have been the offbeat ones: Columbo, Morse, and Adrian Monk:

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 Lieutenant Columbo. This detective, whose first name remains a mystery, deserves a spot here; after all, he's one of TV's foremost detectives, and the show itself presented a groundbreaking take on the whodunit at that time: Each episode began with audiences already knowing the culprit. It made viewers witnesses to how the crime was committed and how Columbo, in his disheveled disguise and feigned dimwittedness, would outsmart even the sharpest-witted murderer.  

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Inspector Morse. Like Columbo, this lead character of the successful British series is the exact opposite of the prototype fictional detective. Unlike Magnum, Crockett, and Starsky and Hutch, Morse isn't young and brawny, doesn't possess hip and suave looks, and doesn't drive fancy cars. Instead, he is a cranky, high-brow, art-loving fella. But such characteristics came in handy as he solved crimes in aristocratic Britain: In one episode, when valuable erotic paintings were stolen from a mansion, he searched for and found answers by using his knowledge of how the minds of the rich and famous work.  

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Adrian Monk. At first glance, and TIME's Lily Rothman would agree, this neurotic detective is an odd candidate. But to me, it's their quirks that make great P.I.s tick, and Monk, with his obsessive-compulsive and phobic tendencies, fits the bill quite well. These same propensities, coupled with his sharp memory, would help him stumble upon the answers to mysteries behind the crimes he handled. But more than his ability to solve crimes, his accidentally funny behavior endeared him to legions of audiences, me included.  

I am Zachary Wood, Orlando resident and a fan of fictional mystery that arrests my imagination. Visit this blog for more about the best of crime fiction.

A non-fiction mystery: The death of Ernest Hemingway

Some true stories are as engrossing as fiction. Ernest Hemingway died more than 50 years ago, but mystery hounds his death to this day.

What we came to know is this: One July morning in 1961, Hemingway woke up, went straight ahead to a roomful of guns, took a double-barreled shotgun and pulled its trigger. But instead of pointing it to pigeons as he usually did, he put it against his head. He died in that single blow.

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The question at that time was how could someone of that stature--a journalist and a literary giant, a brawny man who loved adventuring in the great outdoors--take his own life?

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Different speculations arose. His wife Mary claimed Hemingway accidentally killed himself while cleaning the shotgun--a claim she withdrew a few months after. Others say he had just gone mad out of his uncontrollable dependence to alcohol.

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Or is alcoholism to blame? I came across a research of around 15 of Hemingway’s biographies that revealed the great writer was a victim of a sad childhood under his parents who displayed difficult behavior. He was heir to a tendency for moody, erratic behavior, and an addiction to alcohol. Such would probably explain the unpredictable temper, countless dalliances, a tendency for flight, the love for gore, the injured spirit, and that eventual move to end his life.

What exactly made him pull the trigger, then? One of his friends, playwright Aaron Edward Hotchner, floated an idea on the possible reason behind the mental anguish of his final days. Hemingway was afraid the FBI, suspicious of his ties with Cuba after retreating there for decades, was following him.

But how that plot had set would be both interesting and perplexing to know.  

I am Zachary Wood, a business manager living in Orlando, Florida. I am a water sports enthusiast and a fan of Ernest Hemingway's mystery works. Visit this blog where I blog about celebrity arrests taking place in my hometown. That’s how I keep up with mystery in real life.