Slow Horses, on Apple TV+

In Mick Herron’s novels, Slough House is a lot like the “Circus” in Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, except anyone stationed there knows their career is on the skids. Typically, their crusty boss, Jackson Lamb, hands out demeaning intelligence busywork to his team of “losers,” but they suddenly find themselves embroiled in an act of domestic terror in the six-episode Slow Horses, adapted by Will Smith (relax, it’s a common name), which premieres Friday on Apple TV+.

River Cartwright was cocky, because he thought he was a good agent and his grandfather David presumably still has influence after retiring from a very high position in MI5. Then he messed up during a highly visible training exercise, so now he is attached to Slough House. Lamb thinks he has only one decent agent, but it isn’t him. Instead, he means Sid Baker, who has apparently been tailing him since she arrived.

Cartwright discovers this while following up on leads he generated during some particularly nasty dumpster diving. Somehow, he might have a line on a disgraced far-right journalist, who seems to know something about the kidnapping of a young Muslim comedian by a mysterious cell of British nationalist extremists. However, Lamb’s rival, Diana Taverner, director of operations at the proper MI5 probably knows even more. Lamb deduces the abduction is part of a false flag operation she launched to entrap the “Sons of Albion” and discredit the far-right. If anything goes wrong, which it will, she intends to scapegoat Slough House.

Obviously, Slow Horses follows in the tradition of le Carre’s Tinker Tailor, even sharing the star of the film version, Gary Oldman. There is a lot of dry, cutting British humor, which is perfect for Oldman and Kristin Scott Thomas. Frankly, the actual terrorist-thriller elements are just okay, but the politics involved could very well alienate both sides (nationalists are bad, but the “deep state” is also pretty slimy). However, the backbiting, bureaucratic in-fighting, and double-crossing are all jolly good fun.

As you would expect, Oldman is perfectly cast as the caustic, boozy Lamb. The same is true of Thomas, who gets nearly as many laughs as the regal but acid-tongued Taverner. In terms of tone, the humor is somewhat akin to Yes, Minister, but darker, because characters really die, pretty regularly.

Mary: Gary Oldman Skippers Her as Best He Can

On paper, this evil boat should be way scarier than Christine, because her passengers will be stranded by the open water. They can’t try to dive out a window and run for a narrow alleyway. They must remain on the high seas until they reach port. Unfortunately, that does not seem likely to happen for everyone, judging from the if-I-had-but-known in media res prologue to Michael Goi’s Mary, which releases today on DVD.

David is tired of sailing other people’s charter boats. He longs to be his own skipper, but he cannot afford a tourist-worthy boat—or so he thought until he spied the Mary, an old but seaworthy German sail boat, with a rather evil looking masthead, now up for auction after the Coast Guard found her abandoned. With the help of his sidekick-first mate Mike, they will refurbish her and go into business for themselves. David’s wife Sarah is a bit skeptical, but she does not have much standing to argue since her husband forgave her infidelity.

The restoration is quick and uneventful in movie time, so David and family logical decide to celebrate with a maiden voyage through the Bermuda Triangle. Good call. Of course, as soon as they are far enough out in international waters, Mary starts messing with their heads, especially that of their youngest, ominously also named Mary.

Goi has a terrific cast at his disposal, but he uses them just enough to keep diehard horror fans from walking out, switching the channel, or falling asleep. Weirdly, it is rather interesting to watch Gary Oldman play an average, everyday guy. He and Emily Mortimer are pretty believable as the loving couple under extraordinary stress. Manuel Garcia-Rulfo also goes crazy pretty convincingly as Mike. However, Jennifer Esposito is just hopelessly wasted as Det. Clarkson, who conducts the framing interrogation with a complete lack of intuition.

Lawless: The Moonshine Stills of Franklin County

Scarcity drives up prices.  Just ask bootleggers like the Bondurant Brothers.  The folk hero moonshiners had an intuitive grasp of economic principles sorely lacking in Washington today.  They also produced good home brew.  However, they were not the types to knuckle under when a corrupt lawman from Chicago tries to muscle in on their operation.  Since it is war he wants, the Bondurant Boys will give him one in John Hillcoat’s Lawless (trailer here), which opens this Wednesday in New York.

Based on Matt Bondurant’s fictionalized novel about his prohibition defying forebears (colorfully titled The Wettest County in the World, as Hillcoat’s film was also known prior to its current bland moniker), Lawless transports viewers back to a time when nearly everyone in Franklin County, Virginia was involved in the illicit booze trade, one way or another.  That is western Virginia, not West Virginia, but you get the idea.  Liquor runs freely around these parts and nobody dares to bother to Bondurant Boys, until now.

Frankly, the eldest brother Forrest and middle brother Howard should have been dead long before the film opened.  Their knack for cheating death gave rise to the myth of Bondurant invincibility—a legend they start to believe.  As a result, when the highly connected Special Deputy Charlie Rakes (from Chicago, the nation’s leading producer of crooked, power-hungry government officials) announces the terms of his protection racket, the Bondurants will not play ball.  Conflict is inevitable, but the expansionist schemes of the youngest Bondurant Brother Jack only escalate the situation.  To make matters worse, the Bondurant whippersnapper’s attention is divided between business and wooing the skeptical daughter of the local Mennonite clergyman.

Not surprisingly, Tom Hardy is kind of awesome as the hardnosed Forrest Bondurant and Shia LaBeouf is kind of not as the immature Jack.  Though probably every groupthinking critic will dub the former “Bane the Bootlegger” there is something electrically charismatic about Hardy’s gruff, grunting Bondurant.  He hardly speaks in complete sentences, except when passing Biblical judgment on a rival, like Jules in Pulp Fiction, but he makes every guttural word count.  LaBeouf’s Bondurant is a different matter, truly looking like a boy among men.  It is hard to believe his brothers would let him drive the car to the store, let alone acquiesce to his reckless wheeler-dealing.

Lawless works best when focusing on its larger than life characters, like Brother Forest.  While Guy Pearce has played a fair number of workaday villains in recent years, he finally gets it right here, oozing clammy evil as well coifed sadist, Rakes.  Making the most of a near cameo role, Gary Oldman also brings a blast of energy to the film as big city gangster Floyd Banner.  While it is not nearly as showy a part, Jessica Chastain still takes a solid turn as Maggie Beauford, Forrest’s potential love interest with a scandalous past.  In fact, the rich, cinematic ensemble easily carries Lawless, overcoming its weak lead.

Like a conclusive laboratory experiment, Lawless proves Hardy, Pearce, and Oldman are movie stars, but LaBeouf is not.  Hillcoat also demonstrates a firm command of period shootouts and nicely suggests but never overplays the tall tale flavor of the Bondurant legend.  Consistently vigorous and entertaining, Lawless is ultimately a very good Prohibition action-drama, easily recommended for Bane fans and those intrigued by the era when it opens this Wednesday (8/29) in New York at the Regal Union Square and AMC Kips Bay.

Smiley Returns: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy

Five ghosts haunt John le Carré’s most celebrated spy novel. The shadow of the so-called “Cambridge Four” spy ring, including the treasonous Kim Philby and Anthony Blunt, looms large over the story, especially given the circumstances of their private lives. The fifth of course, is Sir Alec Guinness, who is so closely associated with the role of mole-hunter George Smiley. However, Obiwan Kenobi should be smiling down on Gary Oldman, who confidently assumes the Smiley mantle in Tomas Alfredson’s appropriately cerebral adaptation of Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy (trailer here), which opens this Friday in New York.

Smiley once was the deputy chief of the Secret Intelligence Service (a.k.a. MI6, but known colloquially as “The Circus”), but he was forced out with his boss, known as “Control,” when an operation went spectacularly wrong. As a result, a field operative (or “scalp-hunter” in Circus parlance) was captured, effectively ending Control’s related mole-hunt. Unfortunately, it turns out the late spymaster was not so paranoid after all, as the minister begrudgingly admits when he brings Smiley back into service to furtively investigate the four top officers of the Circus, code-named by Control: Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, and Spy (skipping “sailor” from the old nursery rhyme, because it is too close to “tailor”).

There are no explosions in TTSS, nor is there a whole lot of shooting, but when it happens, it is significant. Instead, we watch as Smiley pieces the puzzle together, interviewing a diverse cast of professional thugs and bureaucrats, gleaning tantalizing clues from each resulting flashback. Yet, perhaps most intriguing are the glimpses we get of “Karla,” the notorious Soviet intelligence mastermind (played by a rarely seen Patrick Stewart in the classic BBC series, no less). Smiley might be chasing a mole, but his real adversary is definitely Karla, who fully understands his retired rival’s weaknesses.

Gary Oldman is the key reason why the revamped TTSS works so well. In a way, Smiley could be considered the dark side of his Commissioner Gordon persona in the Dark Knight franchise. Like Guinness, he plays Smiley’s cool detachment in a way that makes it clear the gears are turning furiously within his head. Occasionally, he even seems to adopt some of Sir Alec’s cadences and mannerisms, but that is fine. Frankly, those familiar with the prior incarnation will rather want to hear that echo.

TTSS also features at least a dozen genuinely first class British actors, some famous and some who should be. John Hurt’s casting as Control is so perfect it requires no explanation. Likewise, Toby Jones, Colin Firth, and Ciarán Hinds add plenty of color as the Circus’s inner circle and Smiley’s prime suspects, by extension. Yet, it is the intense and dynamic supporting work of Mark Strong and the soon to be famous Tom Hardy as scalp-hunters Jim Prideaux and Ricki Tarr that really crackle and hum.

Alfredson has helmed a sleek and brainy espionage thriller (one can see a certain kinship with his frosty, Nordic vampire tale, Let the Right One In), but it is definitely a product of the le Carré school of Cold War moral equivalency. Smiley himself explicitly states there is no ethical distinction between us and them. Even the mole himself eventually explains his decision to betray his country was largely based on aesthetics (which seems bizarre, considering he should be fully versed in the glories of Socialist Realism). Frankly, given the wealth of revelations that have flooded out of the former Soviet bloc, such revisionism seems like a dated relic of the 1970’s, but at least it matches the pseudo-retro vibe of the film.

TTSS is an absorbing big screen intrigue, even though it is relatively easy to guess the mole’s identity, solely on the basis of screen-time allotment. (Frustratingly, this means one of the best actors of our day is rather short-changed in the process.) Still, watching Oldman’s Smiley is the real show, following not just in the footsteps of Guinness but also the great James Mason (who played the character, inexplicably renamed Charles Dobbs, in Sidney Lumet’s moody but effective The Deadly Affair). He is worthy successor, deserving serious Oscar consideration. Recommended for intelligent viewers who enjoy films about Intelligence, TTSS opens this Friday (12/9) in New York at the AMC Lincoln Square and Village 7.