Ceticultsot Beautiful, moving film.

Odelecol Pretty good movie overall. First half was nothing special but it got better as it went along.

BelSports This is a coming of age storyline that you've seen in one form or another for decades. It takes a truly unique voice to make yet another one worth watching.

Guillelmina The film's masterful storytelling did its job. The message was clear. No need to overdo.

Lumiere-5 SO I just watched the film version of Jean LaCarre's *A Murder of Quality*. I liked the way the book ended better. However, it did prove something I had been saying for a long time: that Gary Oldman made a TERRIBLE George Smiley. He does not look right and he does not act right. You see, I'm a HUGE Smioley fan and, like most, I'm a fan from the books. Smiley is described as a funny little man and a disheveled Oxford Don. He has great humor about him that masks a great rage, and his rage is righteous, almost zealous. He is a champion in a battle between good and evil, and he hates the fact that he is constantly doing evil in the name of good. Oldman was wrong physically and was wrong in temperament. Eliot, a great if often overlooked British Actor, plays that switch between humor and rage perfectly, and he looks like a funny little Oxford Don. When I read that Elliot played smiley in this version I knew it would be great, because his turn as Marcus Brody in the Indiana Jones movies had all of Smiley's humor and the Oxford don clichés without his cunning or his rage.In addition to Elliot, the movie has a terrific cast, including Joss Ackland at his sonorous best, Glenda Jackson, and a very young Christian Bale in a pivotal role (this was right before Newsies and a couple years after Henry V). It has that typical made for TV British mystery plodding, and one or two incredibly poor digital mats, but I really liked it.

petsteph1 I saw this recently and remembered how good English TV drama can be. Denholm Elliot's Smiley is so good that I didn't even feel urged to compare it with Alec Guinness'. They both took the character on so well that in each case it was a very complete performance. They both captured the deceptively calm and inoffensive persona - and the sharp biting anger that seems to come from nowhere. The story is good, the mood and supporting cast are all tops. Some of the answers to the mystery can be picked up early on but who cares? The entire production is so well crafted that it's a pleasure just watching it all roll out scene by scene.

vicboyd001 Strongly agree with your own comments, this early Le Carre novel is one of my favourites but this version lacks one thing to make it complete. Denholm Elliott is very good as Smiley but Alec Guinness, for any who saw him in the role in "Tinker Tailor, Soldier, Spy" and "Smileys People" will understand that he IS George Smiley. The rest of the cast are superb and in answer to that question 'Why can't Americans make Movies like this?" the Answer is that you do! Look for them in odd places, "Chiefs", "Centennial" and so on. The Movie follows the book and only really misses on that strange and quintessentially English feeling of claustrophobia that exists in Public School Towns. The Constant battle between school and town. Both deeming the other to be the outsiders. Pickup is wonderful as D'Arcy. I would love to have seen Ian Cuthbertson as Fielding but well you cant have everything can you? I strongly urge all to view this at least twice, the first time to enjoy and the second time to pick up on all the Le Carre touches. I also urge you to find an old English movie of his "A Call For The Dead" All in all a great production and as stated faithful to the original.

pekinman John LeCarré has been lucky in the adaptations of some of his books on to film. 'A Murder of Quality', though quite different from 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy' and 'Smiley's People', not to forget 'The Spy Who Came in From the Cold', is a perfectly crafted murder mystery. Denholm Elliot's George Smiley does not try to imitate the famous portrayals by Alec Guinness but creates a similarly fascinating character out of LeCarré's most famous creation. Glenda Jackson plays his spinsterish "pal", Ailsa Brimley, a former colleague of Smiley's from The Circus during the war years. She is akin to Connie Sachs, memorably played by the great Beryl Reid in other LeCarré adaptions. Both Ailsa and Connie were in love with George and enraged at his reprobate wife, Ann. This and other LeCarré themes are used in 'A Murder of Quality' to their usual intriguing effects; the inclusion of homosexuality, misogynistic tendencies in some of the male characters and the hint of Smiley's darker, perhaps murderous past.It is good to see Joss Ackland and Thorley Walters, old hands from earlier LeCarré adaptations. There isn't a weak link in the cast. Christian Bale makes a sexually tantalizing school boy, complete with his "criminal mind" and vulnerable consciousness. Diane Fletcher, the Lady Macbeth-like Mrs Urquehard from 'House of Cards' appears here as the tough dramatic arts mistress, the archetype gorgon, hearty and heartless.Billie Whitelaw is a poignant mad-woman, Ronald Pickup a wonderfully spineless worm who lives with his "manly" sister, Fiona Walker. Matthew Scurfield is a fascinating police chief, a working grunt with many-faceted depths to his personality.The cinematography is on the dark and gloomy side, as befits the story and setting. The music is superb, another wonderfully evocative score by the late great Stanley Myers.This is now available on DVD from Acorn Media and I urge all LeCarré addicts to get it.Great television like this is extremely rare, and getting scarcer all the time.