Glad I saw it, but tedious and exhausting.

Most movies hold your hand and spoon feed you the story; 'Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy' steals your spoon, blindfolds you, and pushes you down some stairs. Greatly enjoyed its change of pace and approach. George Smiley is Batman.

this was the most clueless 2 hrs 7 min of my life.

Absolutely terrible movie for those who doesn't know the backstory of this movie. I was completely clueless for the first 30 mins, went on wiki to understand the first 30 mins by reading the plot (which is in order on wiki so you wont get any spoilers). Another 30 mins, still confused, went on wiki again to understand. Another 45 mins, STILL confused, went on wiki again. Movie ended, completely unsatisfied and wished i could get back my 2 hours. The storytelling in this movie is absolutely HORRENDOUS, one of the worst i have ever seen. (POTENTIAL SPOILERS) for the reasons why below: [spoiler]1. There was no backstory to ANY character, they just throw you in the movie with like 10 characters and expect you to remember all their names 2. They switch between using the first name and the last name when talking about each other, which makes you have to remember even MORE names 3. Some of them and the organizations have CODENAMES, which makes you have to memorize EVEN MORE names. 4. Each 'plot point' lasts only like 5 seconds after it is revealed, leaving you no time to absorb and try to understand what the heck is going on. 5. There are plenty of stories in this movie, but instead of going on and fully explaning one, they just jump between each other non stop.[/spoiler] I would give it 1 star, but i decided to give 2, because of the incredible cast and acting.

This is one of those films that separate the real film appreciators from the average Joe. When you read "spy movie" you probably think that this is going to be some James Bond movie. It is far, far from that. I absolutely loved it. Gary Oldman couldn't have said more than 200 words in the whole movie and he was phenomenal. This is probably one of those kinds of movies that is a litmus test for the kind of movie viewer you are (I recently thought the same of The Station Agent).  If you can appreciate and love a film like this you and I are probably going to get along alright.