Well-acted 'Tinker' a meticulous spy drama

Ordinarily, it would be easy for viewers to guess the identity of the Soviet mole buried deep inside MI-6, the British Secret Service.

You would simply look for the Hollywood "tell," a well-known actor inexplicably cast in a small and seemingly innocuous supporting role. He (she) will be unmasked as the mystery villain or mastermind.

But in Tomas Alfredson's stylish and moody adaptation of the John Le Carre espionage novel "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy," most of the suspects are fairly well-known actors, so we can't really be sure who the mole might be.

This small but important detail illustrates just how smart "Tinker" is. It doesn't want a lame Hollywood convention to muck up the story for those who haven't read Le Carre's book or seen the six-hour 1979 BBC miniseries version of it starring a post-"Star Wars" Alec Guinness as master spy George Smiley.

In Alfredson's "Tinker," still set during the Cold War era, Gary Oldman takes over the role as Smiley, a brutally silent, highly efficient MI-6 operative forced out of his post by the very British bureaucracy that now needs him back.

An MI-6 chief named Control (John Hurt) apparently dies from a heart attack while investigating the possibility of a Russian mole within the highest ranks of Her Majesty's secret service.

On chess pieces, Control placed photos of his five most likely suspects: the cultured Bill Haydon (Colin Firth), the scary Roy Bland (Ciaran Hinds), company man Percy Alleline (Toby Jones), the sniveling Toby Esterhase (David Dencik) and the formidable Smiley himself.

(I must have missed the part explaining how Smiley would be in a position to investigate a case in which he himself was a suspect.)

Smiley's job is so secret, none of the MI-6 leadership knows about it. Smiley only trusts young assistant Peter Guillam (Benedict Cumberbatch, in a stellar supporting role) to filch necessary documents from records.

I should say here and now that if you're expecting "Tailor" to be a James Bond action clone, you will be disappointed by the absence of outrageous car chases that defy physics and by the lack of spectacular set pieces in which zillions of fired bullets never hit their targets.

"Tinker" presents espionage as a war fought with intelligence (as in personal IQ, not just gathered data), patience and strategy, much like the chess game on Control's desk.

The movie begins on an action note when an MI-6 agent (Mark Strong) travels to Budapest to assist a Hungarian general's defection to the West. The general knows the identity of the Soviet mole, But something goes incredibly wrong and the British government is left with an embarrassment to clear up.

Appropriately, this adaptation of "Tinker" (by Peter Straughan and his late wife, Bridget O'Connor) is chillingly evoked by Hoyte van Hoytema's color-bled camera work that subtly utilizes architecture and room furnishings to frame and isolate the actors in any given scene.

Van Hoytema worked with Swedish director Alfredson on the icy, atmospheric vampire tale "Let the Right One In." Here, their non-British, outsider sensibilities add an extra, detailed dimension to the story.

Oldman's casting as Smiley was on-target for the cinematic reinvention of Guinness' miniseries hero. Oldman (Commissioner Gordon in "The Dark Knight") can make silence sing and turn gestures and incremental changes of expression into virtual soliloquies.

This isn't to suggest that nothing much happens in "Tinker."

Just the opposite.

This is an incredibly well-acted, meticulously constructed drama powered less by what actually occurs than by what might happen next.

"Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy"

★ ★ ★ ½

Starring: Gary Oldman, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Ciaran Hinds, Mark Strong

Directed by: Tomas Alfredson

Other: A Focus Features release. Rated R for language, sexual situations, violence. 127 minutes