THE ASTOR REVIEW

Adapted from the well acclaimed 1974 novel by John le Carre, Tinker Tailor is a tense, gripping spy thriller set against the bleak backdrop of the Cold War. George Smiley, brought back into the game from forced retirement to uncover a spy within the highest echelons of British Intelligence agency MI6, embarks upon a careful and considered chess game where stakes concern not just issues of British national security but also his very own integrity. TJ

IMDB SYNOPSIS

In the early 1970s during the Cold War, the head of British Intelligence, Control, resigns after an operation in Budapest, Hungary goes badly wrong. It transpires that Control believed one of four senior figures in the service was in fact a Russian agent - a mole - and the Hungary operation was an attempt to identify which of them it was. Smiley had been forced into retirement by the departure of Control, but is asked by a senior government figure to investigate a story told to him by a rogue agent, Ricky Tarr, that there was a mole. Smiley considers that the failure of the Hungary operation and the continuing success of Operation Witchcraft (an apparent source of significant Soviet intelligence) confirms this, and takes up the task of finding him. Through the efforts of Peter Guillam, Smiley obtains information that eventually leads him to Jim Prideaux, the agent at the heart of the Hungary fiasco. He is then able to put together the pieces of the puzzle, which lead him to the identity of the mole and the true intent of Operation Witchcraft.