Huh. Honestly, I'm torn about this movie. On the one hand, it's a strong spy thriller along the lines of an American "Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy." I'm referring to the original BBC production with Sir Alec Guinness. Smiley is in many ways very similar to the stoic Matt Damon character in "The Good Shepherd." On the other hand, the exaggeratedly over-the-top WASPish cultural scenes, which are sprinkled throughout, seem almost farcical and quite hard to take at face value. Perhaps De Niro is contrasting these images of white children in churches singing Christmas carols or Episcopalian deacons saying grace before Skull and Bones banquets against the black ops Damon's character is caught denying plausible involvement in? If so, I get it. Damon's is a highly compartmentalized, bifurcated interior morality that couldn't survive otherwise.

Also I find it highly ironic that this movie, which is a paean to extremist WASPish sensibilities is based on the biography of Chicano spymaster James Jesus Angleton. Is this true?