Oldman: Master Spy!

Past Popcorn Taxi guest, director Tomas Alfredson, best known for his feature-film debut of the Swedish bestseller Let the Right One In, continues his foray of adaptations with his upcoming take on John le Carrés’, Tinker, Tailer, Soldier, Spy .

With a powerhouse British cast that would make a Harry Potter flick hide at the back of the bus; this week saw the release of three on-set stills featuring newly anointed Oscar-Winner Colin Firth, Tom Hardy (a busy boy) and the man who will play famed spy George Smiley, Gary Oldman, all decked out in ’60s garb.

Le Carré (real name David John Moore Cornwell) wrote the novel in 1974 as a response to the sudden end of his intelligence career inside MI6. Le Carré was betrayed by notorious double agent Kim Philby (a member of the infamous Cambridge 5 and one of the last to defect to the Soviet Union) when his identity as an intelligence officer was blown to the KGB.

The story centers around fictitious MI6 agent Smiley forced out of semi-retirement to search for an internal mole believed to be handing over top secret Intel to the Soviet Union during the height of the Cold War. Suspicions arise from accusations made by Moscow based agent Ricki Tarr (Tom Hardy), with Smiley’s investigations made behind the back of his deputy Bill Haydon (Colin Firth). Joining this clandestine world is veteran spy-film thesps Mark Strong (Syriana, Body of Lies) and Ciarán Hinds (Munich).

Currently in post-production and slated for an Aussie release in October – The look and feel harks back to the ‘cloak and dagger’ spy films of the ’70s Three Days of the Condor and The Odessa File. At a time when modern espionage operations are in vogue (with Osama bin Laden’s assassination to be adapted for the big screen by The Hurt Locker collaborators Mark Boal and Katherine Bigelow), it’ll be interesting to see Hollywood’s take on intelligence gathering in a pre-internet existence.