MISSION IMPOSSIBLE: ROGUE NATION - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Not since DePalma…...

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation (2015)
Dir. Christopher McQuarrie
Starring: Tom Cruise, Rebecca Ferguson, Simon Pegg, Jeremy Renner,
Ving Rhames, Alec Baldwin, Sean Harris, Simon McBurney, Jens Hultén

Review By Greg Klymkiw

I've got to hand it to producer Tom Cruise with this latest instalment of the Mission Impossible franchise. His savvy overseeing has delivered several key elements which manage to place Ethan Hunt well atop James Bond in the international super-spy sweepstakes.

Most importantly, by handing the directorial reins to Christopher McQuarrie (director of the solidly entertaining Jack Reacher and screenwriter of the superb Valkyrie), Cruise has nailed things down very nicely with this fine decision; Rogue Nation is easily the best-directed MI picture since Brian DePalma's dazzling inaugural entry in the series during the summer of 1996. McQuarrie (save, perhaps for DePalma himself) manages (like those "Ukraine girls" in The Beatles' "Back in the USSR") to knock you out and leave the "West"/rest behind, including John Woo's humourlessly overwrought MI:II, J.J. Abrams' non-directed MI:III and Brad Bird's close, but no cigar Ghost Protocol.

McQuarrie handles virtually every action set piece with the skill and bravura of a master. DePalma is sorely missed in one sequence involving multiple assassination attempts during an opera, not because McQuarrie handles it badly, but because one can only imagine how much better DePalma might have helmed it. Aside from this, though, McQuarrie's mise-en-scene is clean, kinetic and sprinkled with dashes of humour. In fact, Rogue Nation features a two-part car/motorcycle chase which had me twisting about in my seat like one of Lars Von Trier's spastics in The Idiots. I daresay that it might well be a contender for one of the ten best chases ever committed to film.

The plot in these roller coaster extravaganzas usually takes a back-seat to the pyrotechnics, but thankfully this one is simpler and easier to follow than most. Here, Ethan and his team raise the ire of CIA bureaucrat Alec Baldwin and he immediately disbands Ethan's team. Our plucky hero realizes how close he is to nailing a dangerous criminal mastermind, so, with stalwart assistance from regulars Simon Pegg, Ving Rhames and Jeremy Renner, he goes rogue to take the scum down. That's it. End of story, really, and a fine coat hanger with which to drape one mega-thrilling action scene on top of another.

The added bonus here is one kick-ass babe played by Rebecca Ferguson. Aside from being mouth-wateringly gorgeous, she handles herself nicely in all manner of fisticuffs and, like all women, looks especially sexy brandishing firearms.

All the elements here are familiar, but McQuarrie's helmsmanship is seldom less than dazzling. If the Bond producers don't watch out as they keep hiring ham-fisted, tin-eyed losers like Marc Forster and Sam Mendes to keep ruining and wasting Daniel Craig in the horrendously dull and dour 007 films, MI is poised to be the go-to spy franchise.

NOTE: If you get a chance to see MI:RN in IMAX, please do so. I sat front row centre and enjoyed several instances of delightful upchucking.

THE FILM CORNER RATING: ***½ 3-and-a-half Stars

Mission Impossible: Rogue Nation is a Paramount Pictures release.

THE SPY WHO CAME IN FROM THE COLD - Review By Greg Klymkiw - WOW! God Bless the Criterion Collection!

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold (1965) *****
Dir. Martin Ritt
Starring: Richard Burton, Claire Bloom, Oskar Werner, Sam Wanamaker, Rupert Davies, Cyril Cusack, Peter van Eyck, Michael Hordern

Review By Greg Klymkiw

"What the hell do you think spies are? Moral philosophers measuring everything they do against the word of God or Karl Marx? They're not! They're just a bunch of seedy, squalid bastards like me: little men, drunkards, queers, hen-pecked husbands, civil servants playing cowboys and Indians to brighten their rotten little lives. Do you think they sit like monks in a cell, balancing right against wrong?" - Richard Burton as Alex Leamas in Martin Ritt's film adaptation of John le Carré's The Spy Who Came In From The Cold

There are few films that approach the overwhelming sight, sound and almost rank smell of damp cold as Martin Ritt's extraordinary adaptation of John le Carré's classic novel of dirty, double-dealing espionage in London and East Germany at the height of the Cold War. It's a movie that will have haunted anyone who saw it when it first came out and it continues to hold up superbly as a sad, yet strangely suspenseful plunge into the dirty business of spying. As an adaptation from a genuinely great literary source, it's both faithful to the spirit of its writer and yet a superb entity unto itself. For those who have not read John le Carré's book, I suggest that you, like I, see the movie first, then dive into the words of a true master to supplement Ritt's phenomenal interpretation of this genuinely great work of 20th Century literature.

Alex Leamas (Richard Burton) is a spy - weary, bitter and yet, not quite ready to leave the only life he's ever known - the foul world of double-crossing to keep the West safe from the scourge of Communism - a blight not all that far removed from the purported freedoms of Democracy. He knows he's little more than a nasty, lying bureaucrat with nothing left but cynicism and the skill to do what he does - to what end, he continues to even question - but to forge on, he must. His mission is to stay out "in the cold" which is to say, he must keep his carcass embroiled in the Cold War for yet another stinking job.

This time out, will not be much of a stretch. He'll live a life of alcohol abuse and loneliness until taken in by a sweet young librarian (Claire Bloom) with leftist ideals and ties. He'll hopefully be targeted by Eastern-Bloc double agents to sell out Blighty for some filthy lucre - though in so doing, he'll be part of a master chess game played out by his boss Control (Cyril Cusack) and agent George Smiley (Rupert Davies) - characters respectively played by John Hurt and Gary Oldman in the great Tomas Alfredson 2011 film adaptation Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy of 2011.

Eventually approached by the gay Brit traitor Ashe (Michael Hordern), he's placed in the hands of Peters (Sam Wanamaker, the superb blacklisted American actor) who transports Leamas behind the Iron Curtain to spill his guts out to the German-Jew Fiedler (Oskar Werner) whose ultimate goal is to out the vicious anti-Semite assassin Mundt (Peter van Eyck) and hence allow the Germans to execute their own man instead of getting Brit hands dirty.

Needless to say, things will go seriously wrong.

Ritt, of course, was perhaps one of the best directors to tackle this material - his ability to work within genres that required a much more humanist quality while maintaining a sense of razzle-dazzle is what made Hud such a tremendous revisionist take on the American West and so much of his later work continued in this tradition. Of course, as had already been established, Ritt was also a master of eliciting terrific performances and there is not a single false note from any actor in this powerful antithesis to the over-the-top derring-do of the James Bond franchise from the same period. The violence in Bond was pure cartoon viscera, le Carré's was just plain viscera and while Bond was banging anything and everything of the female persuasion, le Carré'gave Alex Leamas one single, gentle woman - a born victim due to high ideals and someone Leamas could genuinely love.

Legendary Brit cinematographer Oswald Morris created such a sumptuous range of grey here, which proves again just how much we've lost by not using genuine black and white FILM more often in the modern world of cinema and just how much the medium stands to lose by its full-on conversion to both digital photography and theatrical presentation. Morris also dazzles us with the fact that black and white is as replete with "colour" in its myriad of shades as anything splashed in full-on technicolor.

The Spy Who Came In From The Cold might well be the greatest espionage thriller ever made and this is certainly no mean-feat - especially when one considers how extraordinary Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy was. Granted, the films were based upon le Carré books separated by a few years (and lest we forget the huge span of over 40 years between films), but it's certainly a testament to Alfredson that he superbly dabbled with a completely different end-of-era take than Ritt - one didn't even live through as Ritt had. Ritt, of course, was well acquainted with one of the effects of the Cold War - the McCarthy witch hunts and years later made the very powerful blacklist drama The Front from Walter Bernstein's great screenplay. Also, Alfredson's source material proved, in many ways, far more challenging given that it centred almost solely upon the inside bureaucratic wrangling of British Intelligence whereas Ritt had the advantage of being "in the Cold" (as it were).

Burton and Oldman both proved to be extraordinary actors to render the two very different le Carré heroes - Oldman's poker face was perfectly in keeping with the role of George Smiley. Burton, however, had quite a few more opportunities to chew the scenery with his role, but he proved, as he so often did, that with the right role, material and director, he was an unstoppable force and when he needed to maintain a poker face, as he needed to here, he did it better than anyone.

Finally, The Spy Who Came In From The Cold, plays very much closer to tragedy - so much so, that it manages to have as much resonance now, if not more than it did at the time of its release. The Cold War of le Carré's work is long behind us and yet, we're currently in the midst of more than one Cold War - the "War" on Terror and the rise and seeming unstoppability of the Stalin-like Vladimir Putin (not to mention the conflicts between the West and countries like China and Northern Korea). Characters like the one played by Burton, Alex Leamas, are as numerous and expendable in today's dirty world of international espionage as they ever were. John le Carré and Martin Ritt, rendered works that were, like all great tragic tales, universal and timeless.

And here we are, 48 years later and The Spy Who Came In From The Cold feels like it could have been made just yesterday. If that's not universal, nothing is.

The Criterion Collection Blu-Ray is yet another masterpiece of home entertainment bravado and will hopefully introduce a whole new generation or two to the genius of Ritt's great film. The disc is replete with a bevy of fascinating extra features. Included in the presentation are the following: An all-new, high-definition digital restoration, with uncompressed monaural soundtrack, a new exclusive interview with author John le Carré, a selected scene-specific commentary with Oswald Morris, The Secret Center: John le Carré, a 2000 BBC documentary on the author’s life and work, an interview with actor Richard Burton from a 1967 episode of the BBC series Acting in the ’60s, conducted by critic Kenneth Tynan, an audio conversation from 1985 between director Martin Ritt and film historian Patrick McGilligan, a gallery of set designs, the trailer and booklet featuring a Michael Sragow essay.

ARGO - Reviewed By Greg Klymkiw - Propaganda 4 U & Me

In the hit film "ARGO", racism and ethnocentrism are both aimed squarely at Iranians with a vengeance. They are portrayed as savage, devious and, as a bonus, stupid grinning bozos too enamoured with American popular culture to do their jobs properly. The fact that the 1980 storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage-taking was, in fact, brought about by America's greed, deception and need to control the rest of the world to serve the needs of its elite corporate rulers, is virtually ignored by the movie save for a tiny mention that's tossed up to please Liberals, then thrown away in the cacophony of raging Iranians, so those same Liberals can feel good about being on side with the movie - shoulder to shoulder with the Right Wing. Christ, this movie is reprehensible on every conceivable level.

ARGO (2012) **
dir. Ben Affleck
Starring: Ben Affleck, Bryan Cranston, John Goodman, Alan Arkin, Victor Garber

Review By Greg Klymkiw

Everybody loves ARGO.

Well, on the surface, there's no reason for anyone to hate it. Directed by Ben Affleck who affably plays CIA "extractor" Tony Mendez, it's a perfectly competent fictionalized portrait of the real life rescue of American embassy workers in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis.

Personally, I have little use for the picture. I'll admit the movie has a clutch of fine performances (notably Affleck himself and a shamefully underused Victor Garber as the Canadian Ambassador who hides the American hostages in his own home) and that Affleck as a director handles a number of sequences with reasonable intelligence and some surprising flair. In particular, I was impressed with the entire unique set-up of the rescue, a tense scene in the Tehran Market and the final 15 minutes or so during the "escape" - especially when some Iranian border guards get bamboozled by the magic of movies - a scene that's as tense as it's vaguely offensive.

Still, I am indifferent to the picture on one hand and a bit disgusted with it on the other. My indifference has much to do with where the emphasis of the rescue is placed and my disgust is with the fake Liberalism used to mask the intentional (or, possibly unintentional) propagandistic elements and its racism (or at best, I'll allow ethnocentrism and/or intolerance) towards the Iranian people.

The emphasis upon Tony Mendez is, for me, a surprisingly dull and easy approach to the story. Much time is spent developing Mendez, a brilliant CIA operative who specializes in rescues. Frankly though, I could care less about someone who - no matter how good he is at his job - still works for one of the most evil entities on the planet. Secondly, the piddling problems Mendez encounters with his marriage and, by extension, the lack of physical proximity to his son, seem pathetically limp compared to those Americans who are hiding in Iran, those who are held hostage and in particular, the Canadian diplomat and his wife who risk their lives hiding the American embassy workers in their own home.

A much better, but probably less commercial movie exists where more emphasis is placed on the trapped Americans than Mendez. Affleck and his writers spend some time with them, to be sure, but the movie that will probably never be made would have immersed us wholly in the terrifyingly claustrophobic situation they found themselves in, but most importantly it would have thoroughly involved us in these people as human beings rather than the Syd Field 101 paintbrush swipes of "character" they get in the current movie.

What's especially disingenuous (and kind of insulting to the survivors) is how the movie expects us to FEEL for them BECAUSE they are AMERICANS rather than people. They're character types with only one extra thin layer of flesh. But, Good Goddamn, they is 'Murrikins and they need sum reskoo'in, y'heah?

Why should this surprise me? A somewhat rhetorical question, I fear, since the movie has been skilfully crafted as entertainment designed to reel in as much revenue as possible and generate boxoffice legs with its jingoistic (albeit more insidiously subtle) propaganda.

The Canadian protectors, the Ambassador and his wife, are given considerable short shrift in this affair. I'm not just saying this because I was born on Canadian soil and far more proud of the role Canada played in the whole affair, but part of me thinks the Canadian ambassador and his wife had a whole lot more to lose than Mendez. He's worrying about his stupid marriage and whether or not his brilliant scheme will have the rug pulled out from under it by the bureaucrats. Worse yet, poor Mendez wins an award from the CIA for his actions, but for security reasons, nobody will ever know save for himself and a small group of colleagues (at least until the sealed files are opened long afterwards).

Do I hear violin strings?

Hark, I do.

Cry me a fucking river.

Let's look at our Iranian brothers and how they're portrayed. There's nary a one of them who go beyond type (though we're shown ONE "good" Iranian who doesn't betray the Canadian Ambassador and his American "house guests"). During Argo's opening scenes we're plunged into that day in 1980 when thousands of angry Iranians marched upon the American embassy and eventually set foot on "American" soil to take Uncle Sam's workers as political prisoners. In an admittedly skillful blend of news, archival and recreated dramatic footage, we see the good, decent, terrified, clean and well-dressed Americans quivering, but ultimately maintaining a professional calm while thousands of screaming, jabbering "Ay-Rabbs" foam at the mouth with anger and blood-lust.

This is how the movie opens.

As the racism and ethnocentrism in the picture progresses, the Iranians are portrayed as evil, devious or worse, stupid bozos more enamoured with American popular culture than doing their jobs.

The fact that this situation has been brought on by America's greed and deception (that began 30 years BEFORE the events of this film), is virtually ignored by the movie (save for a tiny nod that's revealed early on, then thrown away in the cacophony of raging Iranians).

Pardon me all to Hell, but I find this utterly reprehensible.

Will there ever come a time when we'll see a mainstream American movie unapologetically point fingers directly at its own country's subservience to wealth and oligarchical rule as being the real cause of this strife and, in fact, where we find ourselves now? The ignorance and fundamentalism of the Middle East is frankly no worse than that which exists in America (and throughout much of the West). As well, on both sides of the fence there are reasonable, intelligent, caring people, but in Hollywood, the notion that they exist in Iran is snubbed entirely.

The 70s, once again, was a period in American film history when mainstream Hollywood was more than happy to scrutinize the relationship between corporate rule and politics in the good old U. S. of A. The list of harrowing, intelligent, entertaining and even commercial films that ploughed into this territory is almost without limit. The films, as they rightly should, acknowledged the decency of the American people, but condemned those Americans who pulled the strings for personal wealth of a very small minority. (Let's not forget, for example, Cimino's brilliant, powerful and audacious ending to The Deer Hunter that manages to have its cak and eat it too by expressing both love AND disgust for America in one fell swoop.)

Yes, Mendez had a great idea - to pretend he and the trapped Americans were a Canadian film crew scouting locations in Iran for a trashy science fiction exploitation movie. Yes, Affleck delivers a great, commanding performance as Mendez, as do John Goodman and Alan Arkin as the Hollywood guys who secretly and selflessly assist with this ruse to free the Americans in Iran. But that's not what the film is lacking. It has no moral centre - especially not within a more balanced political context.

At the end of the day, ALL cinema is political (to varying degrees). Hell, even a Pauly Shore comedy is "political". ARGO is a rescue film, to be sure, but one that is set against a political backdrop - a political backdrop in which America has wreaked considerable havoc upon (to this very day). To ignore this (or worse, pay brief lip service to it as Affleck's film does before flushing it), as 95% of the critics polled on Rotten Tomatoes have done speaks as much about the dying art of film criticism as well as how American Cinema, more than ever before, is linked almost inextricably to the New World Order that really controls America.

Examining the film by using the strict definitions of the word "racism", ARGO is, as a story, completely and utterly discriminatory with respect to Iran (and the Middle East in general). Other than Mendez, the film's script simplistically glosses over every other character - any of whom are far more interesting than Mendez. This is where the script errs as "art", but as "industry", it's perfect. Alas, the best films strive for a balance or a bit of ambiguity which, interestingly enough, can actually up the dramatic stakes and tension rather than muting them. Affleck is probably a bit too single minded for that. What he ultimately delivers is a modestly successful (in artistic terms) rescue story. End of story.

Granted, Affleck has been influenced by the memoirs of Mendez himself. No offence to Mendez. He does what HE does which is, by all accounts, very well accomplished. He told HIS story from HIS perspective. He can't be blamed for the film's failure as art, only Affleck can be chastised for his poor choice.

That said, I'm certainly not looking for the BEST or most "accurate" rendering of the story anyway. I do, however believe, given all the elements one could choose to focus on within two hours, that the underlying material offers any number of compelling tales. Affleck chose the simplest, easiest and frankly, most susceptible route to promote neanderthal politics. It is perfectly acceptable to criticize his choice and by extension, to imagine one (of many) approaches that might have rendered a genuinely great film. It's not great, either. Not even close.

Even WITH the script AS IS, I wonder what Pollack, Lumet, Frankenheimer, Siegel or (especially) Pakula or Kaufman (think back on their gifts of creating paranoia of the highest order during the 70s) might have brought to the directorial table to strip away the jingoistic elements of the tale and examine, in an entertaining way, the completely fucked American belief that the country can do no wrong.

In spite of ARGO's occasional virtues, I still can't help but think that a better movie could have been made without the propagandistic sledgehammer and that subsequently (and I think, more harrowingly) could have brought us "in" to the story via the Canadian Ambassador and the trapped Americans themselves. What we're left with is a CIA lifer who, in spite of the brilliantly unorthodox methods he employs in this case (and presumably others), is that he's just doing his job and, as his character keeps repeating throughout the film, doing what he does best.

Sickeningly, in this day and age, what drives ARGO is someone who is just doing his job, and even though Mendez might well be a Schindler-like figure above all else within the CIA - especially for what he accomplished in Iran - he did it for a regime that asked for what it got in the first place, an agency which, in spite of the inherent goodness of those it purports to protect, the American people, is as evil as those throughout history whom we should never, ever forget.

God rest their souls, but I suspect both Leni Riefenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein are beaming as they look down from the celestial celluloid Heavens, waiting for Affleck's eventual ascension to join them in a Holy Trinity of using art to extol the virtues of butchers.

However, I ultimately believe ARGO is MEDIOCRE propaganda that contemporary audiences in these days of civilization's decline are gobbling up like hogs at a trough. That's extremely depressing to me. (Come to think of it, I'll take ONE of Leni Riefenstahl's pubic hairs or perhaps TWO of Eisenstein's nostril hairs over ALL that someone like Affleck has to offer at any given moment.)

ARGO is a watchable movie. It plays into the fears of those manipulated by the New World Order. Time, it seems, for Oscar to come a calling.

"ARGO" is playing in wide release all over the world. And yes, it's a hit. Hooray for Hollywood!

ARGO - Review By Greg Klymkiw - TIFF 2012

In the hit film "ARGO", racism and ethnocentrism are both aimed squarely at Iranians with a vengeance. They are portrayed as savage, devious and, as a bonus, stupid grinning bozos too enamoured with American popular culture to do their jobs properly. The fact that the 1980 storming of the American embassy in Tehran and the subsequent hostage-taking was, in fact, brought about by America's greed, deception and need to control the rest of the world to serve the needs of its elite corporate rulers, is virtually ignored by the movie save for a tiny mention that's tossed up to please Liberals, then thrown away in the cacophony of raging Iranians, so those same Liberals can feel good about being on side with the movie - shoulder to shoulder with the Right Wing. Christ, this movie is reprehensible on every conceivable level.

ARGO (2012) **
dir. Ben Affleck

Starring: Ben Affleck,
Bryan Cranston,
John Goodman,
Alan Arkin,
Victor Garber

Review By
Greg Klymkiw

Everybody loves ARGO.

Well, on the surface, there's no reason for anyone to hate it. Directed by Ben Affleck who affably plays CIA "extractor" Tony Mendez, it's a perfectly competent fictionalized portrait of the real life rescue of American embassy workers in Iran during the 1980 hostage crisis.

Personally, I have little use for the picture. I'll admit the movie has a clutch of fine performances (notably Affleck himself and a shamefully underused Victor Garber as the Canadian Ambassador who hides the American hostages in his own home) and that Affleck as a director handles a number of sequences with reasonable intelligence and some surprising flair. In particular, I was impressed with the entire unique set-up of the rescue, a tense scene in the Tehran Market and the final 15 minutes or so during the "escape" - especially when some Iranian border guards get bamboozled by the magic of movies - a scene that's as tense as it's vaguely offensive.

Still, I am indifferent to the picture on one hand and a bit disgusted with it on the other. My indifference has much to do with where the emphasis of the rescue is placed and my disgust is with the fake Liberalism used to mask the intentional (or, possibly unintentional) propagandistic elements and its racism (or at best, I'll allow ethnocentrism and/or intolerance) towards the Iranian people.

The emphasis upon Tony Mendez is, for me, a surprisingly dull and easy approach to the story. Much time is spent developing Mendez, a brilliant CIA operative who specializes in rescues. Frankly though, I could care less about someone who - no matter how good he is at his job - still works for one of the most evil entities on the planet. Secondly, the piddling problems Mendez encounters with his marriage and, by extension, the lack of physical proximity to his son, seem pathetically limp compared to those Americans who are hiding in Iran, those who are held hostage and in particular, the Canadian diplomat and his wife who risk their lives hiding the American embassy workers in their own home.

A much better, but probably less commercial movie exists where more emphasis is placed on the trapped Americans than Mendez. Affleck and his writers spend some time with them, to be sure, but the movie that will probably never be made would have immersed us wholly in the terrifyingly claustrophobic situation they found themselves in, but most importantly it would have thoroughly involved us in these people as human beings rather than the Syd Field 101 paintbrush swipes of "character" they get in the current movie.

What's especially disingenuous (and kind of insulting to the survivors) is how the movie expects us to FEEL for them BECAUSE they are AMERICANS rather than people. They're character types with only one extra thin layer of flesh. But, Good Goddamn, they is 'Murrikins and they need sum reskoo'in, y'heah?

Why should this surprise me? A somewhat rhetorical question, I fear, since the movie has been skilfully crafted as entertainment designed to reel in as much revenue as possible and generate boxoffice legs with its jingoistic (albeit more insidiously subtle) propaganda.

The Canadian protectors, the Ambassador and his wife, are given considerable short shrift in this affair. I'm not just saying this because I was born on Canadian soil and far more proud of the role Canada played in the whole affair, but part of me thinks the Canadian ambassador and his wife had a whole lot more to lose than Mendez. He's worrying about his stupid marriage and whether or not his brilliant scheme will have the rug pulled out from under it by the bureaucrats. Worse yet, poor Mendez wins an award from the CIA for his actions, but for security reasons, nobody will ever know save for himself and a small group of colleagues (at least until the sealed files are opened long afterwards).

Do I hear violin strings?

Hark, I do.

Cry me a fucking river.

Let's look at our Iranian brothers and how they're portrayed. There's nary a one of them who go beyond type (though we're shown ONE "good" Iranian who doesn't betray the Canadian Ambassador and his American "house guests"). During Argo's opening scenes we're plunged into that day in 1980 when thousands of angry Iranians marched upon the American embassy and eventually set foot on "American" soil to take Uncle Sam's workers as political prisoners. In an admittedly skillful blend of news, archival and recreated dramatic footage, we see the good, decent, terrified, clean and well-dressed Americans quivering, but ultimately maintaining a professional calm while thousands of screaming, jabbering "Ay-Rabbs" foam at the mouth with anger and blood-lust.

This is how the movie opens.

As the racism and ethnocentrism in the picture progresses, the Iranians are portrayed as evil, devious or worse, stupid bozos more enamoured with American popular culture than doing their jobs.

The fact that this situation has been brought on by America's greed and deception (that began 30 years BEFORE the events of this film), is virtually ignored by the movie (save for a tiny nod that's revealed early on, then thrown away in the cacophony of raging Iranians).

Pardon me all to Hell, but I find this utterly reprehensible.

Will there ever come a time when we'll see a mainstream American movie unapologetically point fingers directly at its own country's subservience to wealth and oligarchical rule as being the real cause of this strife and, in fact, where we find ourselves now? The ignorance and fundamentalism of the Middle East is frankly no worse than that which exists in America (and throughout much of the West). As well, on both sides of the fence there are reasonable, intelligent, caring people, but in Hollywood, the notion that they exist in Iran is snubbed entirely.

The 70s, once again, was a period in American film history when mainstream Hollywood was more than happy to scrutinize the relationship between corporate rule and politics in the good old U. S. of A. The list of harrowing, intelligent, entertaining and even commercial films that ploughed into this territory is almost without limit. The films, as they rightly should, acknowledged the decency of the American people, but condemned those Americans who pulled the strings for personal wealth of a very small minority. (Let's not forget, for example, Cimino's brilliant, powerful and audacious ending to The Deer Hunter that manages to have its cak and eat it too by expressing both love AND disgust for America in one fell swoop.)

Yes, Mendez had a great idea - to pretend he and the trapped Americans were a Canadian film crew scouting locations in Iran for a trashy science fiction exploitation movie. Yes, Affleck delivers a great, commanding performance as Mendez, as do John Goodman and Alan Arkin as the Hollywood guys who secretly and selflessly assist with this ruse to free the Americans in Iran. But that's not what the film is lacking. It has no moral centre - especially not within a more balanced political context.

At the end of the day, ALL cinema is political (to varying degrees). Hell, even a Pauly Shore comedy is "political". ARGO is a rescue film, to be sure, but one that is set against a political backdrop - a political backdrop in which America has wreaked considerable havoc upon (to this very day). To ignore this (or worse, pay brief lip service to it as Affleck's film does before flushing it), as 95% of the critics polled on Rotten Tomatoes have done speaks as much about the dying art of film criticism as well as how American Cinema, more than ever before, is linked almost inextricably to the New World Order that really controls America.

Examining the film by using the strict definitions of the word "racism", ARGO is, as a story, completely and utterly discriminatory with respect to Iran (and the Middle East in general). Other than Mendez, the film's script simplistically glosses over every other character - any of whom are far more interesting than Mendez. This is where the script errs as "art", but as "industry", it's perfect. Alas, the best films strive for a balance or a bit of ambiguity which, interestingly enough, can actually up the dramatic stakes and tension rather than muting them. Affleck is probably a bit too single minded for that. What he ultimately delivers is a modestly successful (in artistic terms) rescue story. End of story.

Granted, Affleck has been influenced by the memoirs of Mendez himself. No offence to Mendez. He does what HE does which is, by all accounts, very well accomplished. He told HIS story from HIS perspective. He can't be blamed for the film's failure as art, only Affleck can be chastised for his poor choice.

That said, I'm certainly not looking for the BEST or most "accurate" rendering of the story anyway. I do, however believe, given all the elements one could choose to focus on within two hours, that the underlying material offers any number of compelling tales. Affleck chose the simplest, easiest and frankly, most susceptible route to promote neanderthal politics. It is perfectly acceptable to criticize his choice and by extension, to imagine one (of many) approaches that might have rendered a genuinely great film. It's not great, either. Not even close.

Even WITH the script AS IS, I wonder what Pollack, Lumet, Frankenheimer, Siegel or (especially) Pakula or Kaufman (think back on their gifts of creating paranoia of the highest order during the 70s) might have brought to the directorial table to strip away the jingoistic elements of the tale and examine, in an entertaining way, the completely fucked American belief that the country can do no wrong.

In spite of ARGO's occasional virtues, I still can't help but think that a better movie could have been made without the propagandistic sledgehammer and that subsequently (and I think, more harrowingly) could have brought us "in" to the story via the Canadian Ambassador and the trapped Americans themselves. What we're left with is a CIA lifer who, in spite of the brilliantly unorthodox methods he employs in this case (and presumably others), is that he's just doing his job and, as his character keeps repeating throughout the film, doing what he does best.

Sickeningly, in this day and age, what drives ARGO is someone who is just doing his job, and even though Mendez might well be a Schindler-like figure above all else within the CIA - especially for what he accomplished in Iran - he did it for a regime that asked for what it got in the first place, an agency which, in spite of the inherent goodness of those it purports to protect, the American people, is as evil as those throughout history whom we should never, ever forget.

God rest their souls, but I suspect both Leni Riefenstahl and Sergei Eisenstein are beaming as they look down from the celestial celluloid Heavens, waiting for Affleck's eventual ascension to join them in a Holy Trinity of using art to extol the virtues of butchers.

However, I ultimately believe ARGO is MEDIOCRE propaganda that contemporary audiences in these days of civilization's decline are gobbling up like hogs at a trough. That's extremely depressing to me. (Come to think of it, I'll take ONE of Leni Riefenstahl's pubic hairs or perhaps TWO of Eisenstein's nostril hairs over ALL that someone like Affleck has to offer at any given moment.)

ARGO is a watchable movie. It plays into the fears of those manipulated by the New World Order. Time, it seems, for Oscar to come a calling.

"ARGO" is enjoying its premiere at the Toronto International Film Festival 2012

THE BOURNE LEGACY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - Men in suits standing around under fluorescent lights and talking plus old-style, classically directed action scenes makes this Bourne reboot crackling good entertainment.

The Bourne Legacy (2010) dir. Tony Gilroy

Starring: Jeremy Renner, Rachel Weisz, Edward Norton, Joan Allen, Stacy Keach, Zejlko Ivanek, David Strathairn, Scott Glenn, Albert Finney

***1/2

Review By Greg Klymkiw

My idea of a great spy movie is men in suits standing around under fluorescent lights and talking. I don't really need to know what they're talking about - so long as it SOUNDS like THEY know what they're talking about and that whatever it is they're saying SEEMS to pertain to the story at hand. If they're looking at computer monitors, hugging phones to their ears and/or yapping via headsets, I'm super-okay with this. It's definitely a bonus if they're chain smoking, but in this day and age, I'm willing to (grudgingly) forgive a lack of cancer stick ingestion.

If a lot of the dialogue is expositional, this is not as bad as one might think as it assists in our being able to follow what's going on - sort of. It should still be infused with lots of jargon, double-speak and varying degrees of solemnity. It's best we not know too much. The gist is fine. In fact, if the actors are great, I suppose we don't really even need the gist.

The men should mostly be 40-80-something and must look like bureaucrats (which, lest we forget, spies ultimately are). Moustaches are nice, but a supremely clean-cut dome and mug can work just as well.

If they resemble Edward Norton - BONUS! If actually played by Edward Norton, this is, in the parlance of pinball aficionados, double boni.

In this day and age, it is acceptable if women are involved in the endless conversations, but I must admit, I prefer there to be as few of them as possible. If they are babes, this is clearly a bonus - so long as their hair (preferably blonde) is pulled back very tight. Brunettes are fine if they're Rachel Weisz and play scientists in white lab coats. The hair, in this case, does not have to be pulled back tight, but is preferred.

Between these seemingly bottomless pits of conversation, there should be a few good dollops of violence and at least three (my favourite number) nail-biting action set-pieces.

This all pretty much sums up Tony Gilroy's The Bourne Legacy, an extremely satisfying sequel/reboot to the popular Jason Bourne three-picture series based on Robert Ludlum's bestselling books. The first was launched capably by Doug Liman with The Bourne Identity and perfected by the magnificent Paul Greengrass with (the best of the trilogy) The Bourne Supremacy and (second best of the trio) The Bourne Ultimatum.)

Starring Matt Damon as an assassin employed and "programmed" by a secret inner chamber of the CIA, the Bourne pictures had less in the way of claustrophobic spy-speak in the bureaucratic back rooms and a lot more wham-bam action. Compared to those three, The Bourne Legacy feels like an art film, or at least, a second-cousin to Tomas Alfredson's recent version of John le Carré's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. All four pictures were written by Tony Gilroy, the extremely talented son of playwright/director Frank Gilroy.

As a director, Gilroy has left the semi-risible-semi-watchable Duplicity behind him and returned to the promise he displayed in Michael Clayton. The Bourne Legacy might actually be his best picture to date - lacking the fencepost-sitting of his Clive Owen-Julia Roberts comedy thriller and the occasional dark pretension of the George Clooney effort. This new Bourne picture bodes very well, I think, for us to expect future quality endeavours from this assured voice (and hopefully future instalments in the franchise).

Legacy introduces us to a new "Bourne" played with stalwart assuredness by Jeremy Renner. It appears the inner bowels of the CIA under the special project Treadstone (that originally yielded the "One-of-a-kind" Jason Bourne) has, in actuality, generated several superhuman killers and NOW, they want them all dead and to completely erase the whole operation (which includes killing anyone who works for it). Renner plays Aaron Cross, though for much of the film's running time he's nameless - so much so that some people assumed Renner had taken over the Bourne role from Matt Damon. (I was one of them.)

So, between endless scenes of glorious talking, Renner avoids assassination, hooks up with a Treadstone scientist (Rachel Weizs) marked for assassination and the two of them bop all over the world - kicking ass.

The writing is first-rate for the genre, all the performances are top-flight and what I really love about Gilroy's direction is just how old-school his coverage of action scenes is. They're nail-biting, visceral and relatively free of the spatially-challeneged herky-jerky variety. (The Greengrass herky-jerky is in a class by itself. He's a real filmmaker and he has total control of the footage. His compositions, though short, are painterly and we never lose a sense of where we are or where the characters are unless Greengrass WANTS us too.)

Most action-oriented franchises these days are pretty stupid and usually not all that well made. Some of them even fool critics and audiences into thinking the movies are actually good (e.g. Christopher Nolan's overrated, overhyped tripe and the utterly bland-o-rama and barely competent JJ Abrams, to name a couple of directors offering up roller coaster rides masquerading as movies).

The Bourne Legacy is good, solid filmmaking and delivers anything any fan of espionage-action films would ever want. While it feels like a teaming of Damon and Renner is inevitable, I certainly, on paper anyway, have no problem with the prospect of this.

"The Bourne Legacy" is currently in world wide release from Universal Pictures.

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY on Blu Ray and DVD - Review By Greg Klymkiw

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is now available in North America on Blu-Ray and DVD in North America via eOne Films (Canada) and Universal (USA). It's a stunning transfer and features a great commentary track with director Alfredson and star Gary Oldman (though with a few annoying blank gaps). The European Region B version on Optimum has quite a few more goodies on it, though, so if you have a multi-region player, you might be better off buying this one. If you missed this movie on a big screen - as per usual, SHAME ON YOU! Buy it! Watch it! Cherish it!

Buy the North American version of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" on Amazon.ca and Amazon.com with good extras, but missing the super extra stuff on the European version or buy the super-deluxe European Region B version (with lots of great features not on the North American version) of "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" at Amazon.UK


Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) dir. Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, David Dencik, Kathy Burke, Simon McBurney

****

By Greg Klymkiw

When we think of bureaucrats, if we bother to think about them at all, our first thought is usually that of a pencil-pushing-paper-shuffling civil servant toiling at a desk under fluorescent lights in a drab office filled to the rafters with others of the same ilk. I am even more uncharitable. I prefer to think of most civil servants as pathetic cogs within an imperfect machine (a Franz Kafka nightmare) who are more interested in feathering their own nests as they "make work" and scavenge about like turkey vultures upon any opportunities to extend their miserable existence in order to keep their position secure.

Perhaps the best description of a bureaucrat is the one detailed by the German sociologist Max Weber. According to Weber, a bureaucrat is appointed to his or her position solely on the basis of conduct - pure and simple (those intent on rocking boats need not apply) and faithfully, almost-blindly exercises whatever duties are delegated in strict accordance with rules that are completely impersonal. The key emolument, according to Weber, is a lifelong career and the promise of advancement (including benefits and a healthy pension). Most importantly, the bureaucrat must place his or her judgment to serve higher authorities, thus sacrificing said personal decisions if they conflict with official duties as prescribed by regulatory authorities.

Mr. Weber pretty much encapsulates my own thoughts on the matter, but with far more charity than I'm usually prepared to extend. My idea of a good bureaucrat (not always an oxymoron) is one who utilizes rules as a mere guideline and does, in fact, flout the conventional expectations when the cold black and white demands interpretation, thought and personal choices that result in better decisions within the course of exercising those duties which are ultimately there for the betterment of those who require them - especially when the prescribed formulae have NOTHING to do with reality.

When one thinks about spies engaged in international espionage, one seldom thinks of them as bureaucrats. Far too many examples exist in popular culture to allow for this. When our thoughts turn to espionage, we think of Sean Connery as James Bond - immaculately attired, bedding down a bonanza of babes, downing martinis shaken not stirred and equipped with the sort of derring-do usually suited to a comic book superhero. We certainly do not think of men attired in cheap three-piece suits, bags under their eyes, the weight of the world on their shoulders and pushing pencils whilst nattering on in buzz-word-infused babble.

Novelist John le Carré changed all that with his numerous bestselling thrillers that placed the emphasis on the drudgery and bureaucracy of spying and one of his best books, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy eventually became a much-beloved BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness as the poker-faced hero George Smiley. Given the complexities of the chess-like plot, one would think a feature length version of the book would be a losing proposition.

Not so.

With the brilliant Swedish filmmaker Tomas (Let The Right One In) Alfredson at the helm, the 2011 feature version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the best movies of the year and one of the great spy movies of all time.

It's a simple enough plot for a movie like this. In fact, it's the plot's simplicity which brilliantly allows the tale to work with the sort of red-herring-layered elements, complex characterizations and thematic concerns that delve deep below the surface.

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) and his boss Control (John Hurt) are high level members of the British intelligence service who are forced into retirement when a mission to uncover a Soviet double agent in their midst goes horribly wrong, resulting in one of Control's top agents Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) falling victim to a Soviet assassin in Hungary. A new breed/regime comprising Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) take over. One of them is a traitor. All four are especially persnickety, slimy, power-hungry bureaucrats and Bill, in particular, is pleased as punch to have been dinking his trusted colleague's wife.

After Control's death, Smiley is secretly coaxed out of retirement to ferret out the Russkie mole. With the help of a keen young agent Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) a former audio-visual specialist Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke), a rogue bag-boy Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), memories of Control's tutelage and a surprise ally, a complex chess game plays itself out as the layers are slowly stripped away to reveal the truth.

Simple stuff and even those who haven't read the book and/or seen the BBC miniseries might well figure out the mystery long before the movie ends. It doesn't really matter because frankly, it's the ride that counts.

And what a ride!

Director Alfredson plunges us into the bleak, cold, rainy nightmare of the Cold War during the early 70s. With cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema (The Fighter) that harks back to the great work of Owen Roizman (Network, The Exorcist, The French Connection, Three Days of the Condor), Alfredson delivers a movie set in the 70s that looks and feels like it was MADE in the 70s. With gorgeous grain dancing across every frame, we're plunged into the murky world of bureaucrats playing deadly cat and mouse games.

And make no mistake about it, this is a world of civil servants - sitting at ratty, old office furniture, under bleak fluorescent lights, chain smoking as they engage in endless discussion whilst guzzling back cloudy cups of tea. While there are a handful of brutal encounters, they're dealt with efficiently, but not gratuitously. The suspense comes from subtleties and is found in the most unusual places - one great set piece that will have audiences on the edges of their seats involves the simple act of going through files.

I kid you not.

Alfredson's pace is masterful. It moves like a snail - but a very creepy, crawly, determined snail. Every look, gesture, eyebrow twitch, hushed word and stealthy gait explodes with resonance. He creates a very real, compelling world and one that is populated with complex and compelling characters.

The state of distrust and paranoia within the bureaucracy is especially creepy. Buried in deep shadows, dim light and the aforementioned dancing grain, the first two lines of dialogue in the movie are: "You weren't followed?" and "Trust no one." The latter is especially apt in the world Alfredson depicts, but frankly, fits very nicely with the Kafka-like nightmare that IS the civil service. And interestingly, as the movie progresses, it's so cool seeing the aforementioned Max Weber description of bureaucrats and bureaucracies play themselves out within the movie. It's like being a fly on the wall of a very strange world - one that plays out in government offices across the globe on a daily basis, but even stranger when they're set in the context of intelligence gathering and subtle back room war between super powers.

And like mentioned above, good civil servants know the rules, but if they know them really well and play by them, they also know when the rules need to be broken in order to move things beyond points of utter stagnation.

Not a single cast member seems out of place in this great picture - it's one terrific piece of acting after another. Gary Oldman, however, owns this movie and delivers the performance of his lifetime. His astonishing poker-face and rigid body language are stunningly controlled. His most phenomenal work is when Smiley decides when to display, ever-so subtly, something resembling an emotion wherein we see what Smiley wants us to see, or what we (and other characters) THINK Smiley wants us to see. And let it be said that Oldman delivers one of the most staggering screen monologues in movie history - it's up there with the greats: Richard Burton's "Bergin" speech in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Marlon Brando's "fake Ophelia" lament in Last Tango in Paris and Al Pacino's "football is life" speech in Any Given Sunday.

Finally, it's not just the impeccable taste and artistry with which the movie is rendered that makes it such an exquisite experience. The movie holds up to repeat viewings BECAUSE it all doesn't hinge on the mechanics of its admittedly solid plot, but rather the atmosphere of despair, adversity and pathetic game-playing that drives the world of these spies - on both sides of the fence. There are a series of flashbacks to a Christmas party where all the bureaucrats are united in the common goal of joy - albeit joy fuelled by the melancholy of booze - but they are UNITED, under one roof (albeit one lit with grotesque fluorescent lights) and amidst the revelry, a betrayal that's somewhat deeper than mere turn-coating and double-dealing is revealed and the sadness this evokes cuts to the bone.

Cutting even deeper still is something John Hurt's character Control declares. He says, "Nothing is genuine anymore." And he's right. When the old gives way to the new, it's not always rebirth which yields results - especially not in bureaucracies. Rebirth often means the death of that which is genuine - when the typical bureaucrats, those nest-feathering prigs seeking self-preservation over adherence to the honest goals of the civil service (no matter how coldly arrived at), worm their way into the works - gumming them up and casting aside the genuine values of those who would rather do good.

It's a great movie!

TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY - Review By Greg Klymkiw - "Nothing is genuine anymore," declares a chief intelligence bureaucrat in this genuinely great motion picture. From the brilliant director of LET THE RIGHT ONE IN, this is one of the finest spy thrillers ever committed to film.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011) dir. Tomas Alfredson
Starring: Gary Oldman, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, Ciarán Hinds, Benedict Cumberbatch, Mark Strong, David Dencik, Kathy Burke, Simon McBurney

****

By Greg Klymkiw

When we think of bureaucrats, if we bother to think about them at all, our first thought is usually that of a pencil-pushing-paper-shuffling civil servant toiling at a desk under fluorescent lights in a drab office filled to the rafters with others of the same ilk. I am even more uncharitable. I prefer to think of most civil servants as pathetic cogs within an imperfect machine (a Franz Kafka nightmare) who are more interested in feathering their own nests as they "make work" and scavenge about like turkey vultures upon any opportunities to extend their miserable existence in order to keep their position secure.

Perhaps the best description of a bureaucrat is the one detailed by the German sociologist Max Weber. According to Weber, a bureaucrat is appointed to his or her position solely on the basis of conduct - pure and simple (those intent on rocking boats need not apply) and faithfully, almost-blindly exercises whatever duties are delegated in strict accordance with rules that are completely impersonal. The key emolument, according to Weber, is a lifelong career and the promise of advancement (including benefits and a healthy pension). Most importantly, the bureaucrat must place his or her judgment to serve higher authorities, thus sacrificing said personal decisions if they conflict with official duties as prescribed by regulatory authorities.

Mr. Weber pretty much encapsulates my own thoughts on the matter, but with far more charity than I'm usually prepared to extend. My idea of a good bureaucrat (not always an oxymoron) is one who utilizes rules as a mere guideline and does, in fact, flout the conventional expectations when the cold black and white demands interpretation, thought and personal choices that result in better decisions within the course of exercising those duties which are ultimately there for the betterment of those who require them - especially when the prescribed formulae have NOTHING to do with reality.

When one thinks about spies engaged in international espionage, one seldom thinks of them as bureaucrats. Far too many examples exist in popular culture to allow for this. When our thoughts turn to espionage, we think of Sean Connery as James Bond - immaculately attired, bedding down a bonanza of babes, downing martinis shaken not stirred and equipped with the sort of derring-do usually suited to a comic book superhero. We certainly do not think of men attired in cheap three-piece suits, bags under their eyes, the weight of the world on their shoulders and pushing pencils whilst nattering on in buzz-word-infused babble.

Novelist John le Carré changed all that with his numerous bestselling thrillers that placed the emphasis on the drudgery and bureaucracy of spying and one of his best books, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy eventually became a much-beloved BBC miniseries starring Alec Guinness as the poker-faced hero George Smiley. Given the complexities of the chess-like plot, one would think a feature length version of the book would be a losing proposition.

Not so.

With the brilliant Swedish filmmaker Tomas (Let The Right One In) Alfredson at the helm, the 2011 feature version of Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy is one of the best movies of the year and one of the great spy movies of all time.

It's a simple enough plot for a movie like this. In fact, it's the plot's simplicity which brilliantly allows the tale to work with the sort of red-herring-layered elements, complex characterizations and thematic concerns that delve deep below the surface.

George Smiley (Gary Oldman) and his boss Control (John Hurt) are high level members of the British intelligence service who are forced into retirement when a mission to uncover a Soviet double agent in their midst goes horribly wrong, resulting in one of Control's top agents Jim Prideaux (Mark Strong) falling victim to a Soviet assassin in Hungary. A new breed/regime comprising Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), Roy Bland (Ciarán Hinds) and Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) take over. One of them is a traitor. All four are especially persnickety, slimy, power-hungry bureaucrats and Bill, in particular, is pleased as punch to have been dinking his trusted colleague's wife.

After Control's death, Smiley is secretly coaxed out of retirement to ferret out the Russkie mole. With the help of a keen young agent Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch) a former audio-visual specialist Connie Sachs (Kathy Burke), a rogue bag-boy Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), memories of Control's tutelage and a surprise ally, a complex chess game plays itself out as the layers are slowly stripped away to reveal the truth.

Simple stuff and even those who haven't read the book and/or seen the BBC miniseries might well figure out the mystery long before the movie ends. It doesn't really matter because frankly, it's the ride that counts.

And what a ride!

Director Alfredson plunges us into the bleak, cold, rainy nightmare of the Cold War during the early 70s. With cinematography by Hoyte Van Hoytema (The Fighter) that harks back to the great work of Owen Roizman (Network, The Exorcist, The French Connection, Three Days of the Condor), Alfredson delivers a movie set in the 70s that looks and feels like it was MADE in the 70s. With gorgeous grain dancing across every frame, we're plunged into the murky world of bureaucrats playing deadly cat and mouse games.

And make no mistake about it, this is a world of civil servants - sitting at ratty, old office furniture, under bleak fluorescent lights, chain smoking as they engage in endless discussion whilst guzzling back cloudy cups of tea. While there are a handful of brutal encounters, they're dealt with efficiently, but not gratuitously. The suspense comes from subtleties and is found in the most unusual places - one great set piece that will have audiences on the edges of their seats involves the simple act of going through files.

I kid you not.

Alfredson's pace is masterful. It moves like a snail - but a very creepy, crawly, determined snail. Every look, gesture, eyebrow twitch, hushed word and stealthy gait explodes with resonance. He creates a very real, compelling world and one that is populated with complex and compelling characters.

The state of distrust and paranoia within the bureaucracy is especially creepy. Buried in deep shadows, dim light and the aforementioned dancing grain, the first two lines of dialogue in the movie are: "You weren't followed?" and "Trust no one." The latter is especially apt in the world Alfredson depicts, but frankly, fits very nicely with the Kafka-like nightmare that IS the civil service. And interestingly, as the movie progresses, it's so cool seeing the aforementioned Max Weber description of bureaucrats and bureaucracies play themselves out within the movie. It's like being a fly on the wall of a very strange world - one that plays out in government offices across the globe on a daily basis, but even stranger when they're set in the context of intelligence gathering and subtle back room war between super powers.

And like mentioned above, good civil servants know the rules, but if they know them really well and play by them, they also know when the rules need to be broken in order to move things beyond points of utter stagnation.

Not a single cast member seems out of place in this great picture - it's one terrific piece of acting after another. Gary Oldman, however, owns this movie and delivers the performance of his lifetime. His astonishing poker-face and rigid body language are stunningly controlled. His most phenomenal work is when Smiley decides when to display, ever-so subtly, something resembling an emotion wherein we see what Smiley wants us to see, or what we (and other characters) THINK Smiley wants us to see. And let it be said that Oldman delivers one of the most staggering screen monologues in movie history - it's up there with the greats: Richard Burton's "Bergin" speech in Who's Afraid of Virginia Woolf, Marlon Brando's "fake Ophelia" lament in Last Tango in Paris and Al Pacino's "football is life" speech in Any Given Sunday.

Finally, it's not just the impeccable taste and artistry with which the movie is rendered that makes it such an exquisite experience. The movie holds up to repeat viewings BECAUSE it all doesn't hinge on the mechanics of its admittedly solid plot, but rather the atmosphere of despair, adversity and pathetic game-playing that drives the world of these spies - on both sides of the fence. There are a series of flashbacks to a Christmas party where all the bureaucrats are united in the common goal of joy - albeit joy fuelled by the melancholy of booze - but they are UNITED, under one roof (albeit one lit with grotesque fluorescent lights) and amidst the revelry, a betrayal that's somewhat deeper than mere turn-coating and double-dealing is revealed and the sadness this evokes cuts to the bone.

Cutting even deeper still is something John Hurt's character Control declares. He says, "Nothing is genuine anymore." And he's right. When the old gives way to the new, it's not always rebirth which yields results - especially not in bureaucracies. Rebirth often means the death of that which is genuine - when the typical bureaucrats, those nest-feathering prigs seeking self-preservation over adherence to the honest goals of the civil service (no matter how coldly arrived at), worm their way into the works - gumming them up and casting aside the genuine values of those who would rather do good.

It's a great movie!

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy" is currently in theatrical release via E-One Entertainment.