Movie review: Pieces of spy thriller "Tinker Tailor' fit snugly together

The camera in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” often peeks through windows or glides slowly toward characters. It’s as if it is spying on them, which, of course, is what we’re doing, too.

Watching the Cold War spy thriller is an electrifying experience. It’s a complicated movie but not the kind that makes you want to throw up your hands in bewildered frustration. Instead, the details in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” make you feel more alert and involved. You’re confident your attention and intelligence will be rewarded with a story whose pieces fit snugly together.

The tale is as simple and devious as a puzzle: George Smiley (Gary Oldman, in subtle mode) is a retired British intelligence officer brought back into the fold to determine which of his morally compromised colleagues, whose code names form the film’s title, is a mole.

The stakes are high. Two of the top-billed actors in “Tinker” are dead before the opening credits are finished. And paranoia is rampant as it becomes clear Smiley can’t take anything at face value.

Neither can we. Director Tomas Alfredson, who made the brilliantly suspenseful vampire movie “Let the Right One In,” uses a variety of sly tactics to remind us there’s more to “Tinker” than meets the eye. Sometimes, we’re given information the characters aren’t, as in a Hitchcockian scene where Tom Hardy’s character (like everyone in the film, he’s a secret agent) searches for a missing character just out of his vision but plainly in ours.

Alfredson expertly uses the M. Night Shyamalan trick of positioning the camera so we’re startled to realize someone we thought was alone very much isn’t. He crafts a riveting scene in which Benedict Cumberbatch steals evidence from British intelligence in plain sight. In an unsettling and sneaky trick, it might not even occur to you until “Tinker” ends that one crucial character has been referred to constantly but never seen.

The atmosphere of secrets and betrayal among the power elite is thrilling because Alfredson never overplays it. “Tinker” is a cool-and-calm movie about cool-and-calm characters who are frantic beneath the surface. That frantic quality also emerges in a couple of shocking scenes that are smashingly effective because they are so different from everything else in the film.

Eventually, winners and losers are declared in “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” but the film makes clear that trying to balance loyalty to country, colleagues and loved ones costs every character dearly. The movie teaches us to think on two levels at the same time, just like its divided characters must.

So, when one guy proclaims in his dying breath, “I am loyal!” you’re apt to think both, “Yes, he is loyal” and, more important, “But to whom?” ‘TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY’

* * * *

Cast: Gary Oldman, Ciaran Hinds, Colin Firth, Benedict Cumberbatch, Tom Hardy, Mark Strong

Director: Tomas Alfredson

Running time: 2:07

Rated: R; bloody violence, partial nudity, strong language