For those monitoring my potential windfall (outlined here, here and here), the $28,324,275.00 promised by Mrs. Renate Magdalena Settnik of Burkina Faso never materialized. And while there’s no denying this turn of events has caused me some financial distress (audits, wage garnishment, bankruptcy, etc.), for those of you engaged in a self-satisfied smirk (What kind of moron reads unsolicited emails from war widows, let alone provides his home address, social security and account/routing numbers?), let me ask you this: When was the last time you did something as selfless as volunteering to absorb the significant fortune of a poor soul trapped in war zone/dictatorship? The answer: NEVER.

Please understand: This is my passion, my purpose. (Well, that and talking to myself about movies via these blogposts.) So instead of judging, maybe you should consider opening up your email’s JUNK folder and digging for some dollars to repatriate.

Which brings me to my newest bulletproof financial score, this from Spc. James Gilliard…

I am a Spc. James Gilliard with the United Nations troop stationed here in Iraq. Our mission is to help beef up terrorist targeted states. I will need a car for myself and that is why I contact you. On the other hand I want to inform you that I have in my possession the sum of 6.2 million USD. Which i got from crude oil deal.

I deposited this money with a Red Cross agent. It is under my power to approve whoever comes forth for this money. I wish to invest the money on stock fish from Norway because Turkish and Sudanese refugees lack a lot of fish and meat to add to their meagr and unpalatable meals.

If you accept, I will transfer the money to Europe because I am a uniformed person and I cannot be parading such an amount. I am an American and an intelligence officer so I have a 100% authentic means of transferring the money through diplomatic courier service.

If you are interested please send me your personal mobile number. I am doing this on trust and you should know that as a trained military expert I will always play safe in case you are the bad type, but I pray you are not. 6.2 million USD is a lot of money which is the dream of anyone. I will give to you 40% and 60% is for me. I hope I am been fair on this deal.

Regards,
Spc. James Gilliard

And so, with my coffer$ once again about to overflow, it’s time spring the MacBook from in hock and wrap the last two installments of this deep(ish) dive into John le Carré adaptations!

The Constant Gardener (2005, dir. Fernando Meirelles)

As we saw in The Russia House and The Tailor of Panama, the end of the Cold War had little effect on le Carré’s output. He simply changed tack to subjects ripe for his intense scrutiny, in this case bureaucratic corruption, international conspiracy and private business amorality.

In this adaptation, Ralph Fiennes stars as Justin Quayle, a British diplomat in Kenya whose beloved wife, Tessa (Rachel Weisz), has been found brutally murdered.

We learn in flashbacks that Tessa had befriended Arnold Bluhm, a Kenyan doctor, soon after arriving with Justin at their African posting. Bluhm confides to her that he’s very concerned about a trial drug being tested on locals by a company called Three Bees, a drug that seems to be doing much more harm than good. Tessa, who once worked for Amnesty International and so knows a little something about social justice, is only too happy to help expose the malfeasance. Next thing you know, however, she and the good doctor are dead.

While Quayle knows nothing of his Tessa’s pet project, he was aware of gossip that she and Bluhm were having an affair. After some digging, he discovers that a) Bluhm was gay so nothing to see there; b) Tessa possessed an incriminating letter regarding the drug test failures written by the head of the Africa Desk at the British Foreign Office; and c) Three Bees was just a local front for KDH, one of the largest pharma companies in the world, a company with a huge investment riding on the drug’s successful trial. Perhaps enough investment to silence anyone shaking the tree? Hmm. Anyway, with his eyes finally open the somewhat passive Quayle decides to take over the crusader reins from his dead wife.

Anyway, don’t want to reveal too much more. Suffice to say, this film packs quite the emotional wallop. And while all the performances are top notch—how can one go wrong with Weisz (who won an Academy Award), Fiennes, Danny Huston and the late Pete Postlethwaite?—the real stars here (IMHO) are Brazilian director Fernando Meirelles and his trusty director of photography, César Charlone, both best known for their incredibly raw Rio de Janeiro-set crime drama City of God (2002). Utilizing vérité photography and punchy editing similar to that earlier film, the two fashioned something about as far from a traditional le Carré adaptation as the moon, truly transporting the viewer into the heat, poverty and beauty of Kenya.

• True to Source Material—7/10 (One can only capture so much of a 557-page novel in 129 minutes.)

• Mise en scène—10/10 (The sights, sounds and smells of Kenya come flying off the screen. Kinda the anti-Out of Africa in terms of travelogue.)

• Gut-Wrenching Death—10/10 (No spoilers!)

• Moral Ambiguity—5/10 (Unlike much le Carré, there’s little doubt who the bad guys are here.)

• Final Verdict—9/10 (Bleak and depressing as shit but, hey, sometimes that’s life.)

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011, dir. Tomas Alfredson)

Good news: I can keep this one sorta short because I already covered the plot in my first le Carré post. Yes, this is a remake of that 1979 BBC TV version, only this one produced specifically for the cinema, which meant a much shorter runtime and significantly more star power sprinkled throughout the cast. (This isn’t intended as a slight against the great Alec Guinness but rather one against his miniseries co-stars.)

Gary Oldman dons the trench coat/spectacles/grim expression of George Smiley this time around, with very capable support from a murderer’s row of fine British thespians/character actors, including Benedict Cumberbatch, Colin Firth, Tom Hardy, Ciarán Hinds, John Hurt, Toby Jones, Simon McBurney and Mark Strong. The direction is provided by the very talented Swede, Mr. Tomas Alfredson.

I saw this in the theater back in 2011 with my dear friend/ex-co-worker Mike, another le Carré junkie. I absolutely loved this version, an opinion that hasn’t wavered upon subsequent viewings on video. Oldman absolutely does Smiley proud, his every gesture, countenance and infrequent utterances bringing alive the character’s quiet intensity. His supporting players get some meat to chew on, too, especially early career Cumberbatch and Hardy.

Special shout out to the film’s screenwriters, husband/wife team of Bridget O’Connor and Peter Straughan, the former sadly passing away from cancer not long before the film premiered. Adapting what many consider a sacred text is hard enough, but to chop it down to fit a 2-hour runtime and still make it coherent is something else all together.

Regarding my friend Mike, I’m sad to report that he was unable to get past the truncation of le Carré! prose/plot, not to mention the whole Guinness vs. Oldman thing, and to this day remains lukewarm on the film. #loser&hater

• True to Source Material—8/10 (One can only capture so much of a 355-page novel in 127 minutes. However, thanks to the deft adaptation by O’Connor/Straughan, this is pretty much as good as it gets.)

 

• Mise en scène—8/10 (Filmed in ‘scope by crack cinematographer Hoyte van Hoytema, the film has the requisite widescreen dreariness inherent to its subject matter and London-heavy settings.)

• Gut-Wrenching Death—7/10 (No spoilers!)

• Moral Ambiguity—10/10 (Duh…it’s le Carré!)

• Final Verdict—10/10 (Probably my all-time fav le Carré adaptation. Never tire of watching it. Bonus: look for a cameo by the master himself in the MI6 Christmas party scene.)

A Most Wanted Man (2014, dir. Anton Corbijn)

Back in the early aughts, le Carré became a very vocal critic of America’s post-9/11 foreign policy, going so far as to pen an essay for The Time of London entitled “The United States Has Gone Mad.” As an ex-MI6 man himself, what really stuck in his craw was the “politicization of intelligence to fit the political intentions,” which, of course, directly resulted in the Iraq invasion and the rendition-heavy War on Terror. 

This negativity towards the U.S. (and his own government under Tony Blair) began creeping into his novels of this period, including 2008’s A Most Wanted Man, which tells the story of Issa, a mysterious refuge in Hamburg who maintains he simply wants to become a doctor if granted asylum. It’s soon revealed that Issa is the son of a Russian general, Karpov, who has laundered a huge sum of money into a Hamburg bank. When told this, Issa wants nothing to do with the money—as a devout Muslim he thinks it’s “unclean.”

Nudged by Annabel Richter, a Human Right lawyer, and Günther Bachmann, a sympathetic German intelligence officer, Issa decides to donate the money to a Muslim philanthropist, Dr. Abdullah, who security services suspect will funnel some of that money to al-Qaeda. Bachmann’s hopes to use this illegal activity to “turn” Abdullah and use him to identify those higher up the al-Qaeda chain of command. As for the completely clueless Issa, Bachmann is happy to let him go about his life in Germany.

Of course, this being le Carré nothing goes as planned. Hint: the CIA has very different ideas about how our Muslim friends should be treated.

The film adaptation stars the late, great Phillip Seymour Hoffman (who passed away month after its premiere at Sundance) as Bachmann, Rachael McAdams as Annabel, the two ably supported by Willem Defoe, Robin Wright and Daniel Brühl. While all great, Hoffman is the standout, his manipulative, yet moral intelligence officer a fine, meaty role to serve as his valediction.

(Listening to his gravely voice, watching how he moves his considerable bulk through the frame, it’s truly shocking to think that this was the same guy we watched excitedly utter such gems as “Greenage!” and “The Suck Zone. It’s the point basically when the twister…sucks you up” and “Meg’s gravy is famous. It’s practically a food group” in 1996’s guilty pleasure Twister.

Bonus fact: the movie was directed by Anton Corbijn. Know who he is? I’ll give you two hints: 1) he’s got a really, really good eye (see still image above) and 2) …

• True to Source Material—7/10 (One can only capture so much of a 336-page novel in 122 minutes.)

• Mise en scène—8/10

• Gut-Wrenching Death—0/10

• Moral Ambiguity—10/10 (Duh; it’s le Carré!)

• Final Verdict—7/10

Coming in Part 4, the long-awaited, triumphant finale, including…

• Our Kind of Traitor (2016)
• The Night Manager (2016)
• The Little Drummer Girl (2018)