The Spy who Came in from the Cold

B-

Directed by Martin Ritt

Director Martin Ritt's adapation of John Le Carré's novel has all the elelments of a slow burning, tightly wound spy caper but it unfortunately fails to live up to the sum of its parts.

Alec Leamas (played fantastically by Richard Burton), a jaded British intelligence agent at the end of his rope, retires to London after a botched job in Berlin. He takes up a job as an assistant librarian and meets the beautiful Nan Perry and the two start up a tentative romance that seems to give the depressed Leamas a shot in the arm. Their burgeoning relationship is cut short when Laemas is called back to duty for a final mission behind the iron curtain where he is tasked with eliminating the East German super spy, Hans Munst.

Like most film adaptations of Le Carré's work that I've been exposed to, "The Spy who came in from the Cold" seems to be filled with great ideas that fail to really translate into anything palpably exciting or intriguing. I was left with the same empty feeling I experienced after watching "The Tailor of Panama" even though Ritt's film enjoyed substantially more critical praise than the latter adaptation of Le Carré's work. There is no doubt that Ritt's adaptation is quite well done and Burton's performance is remarkable, elevating "The Spy who Came into the Cold" beyond some of the less inspired adaptations of Le Carré's work. The bottom line, however, is that I just don't find Le Carré's work that compelling. It's too far flung to seem realistic but not wild enough to just be good, old fashioned cold war era fun in the style of James Bonds' many forays behind the iron curtain. The political and social angles of Ritt's work also seems a bit thin in retrospect as Ritt portrays Laemas as a man caught between two amoral camps, both of which are equally disdainful of the lives of individuals in their pursuit of larger political victory. Although there's an element of truth in that view, I've never been comfortable with works that try to completely level the playing field and stoop to relativism when it comes to evaluating such heavy subject matter.

In the end, however, the lack of poignant or intelligent commentary on the politics of the day could have been overcome by an intriguing narrative. Ritt's work, however revered it may be in the genre, simply fails to deliver on that count.