Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy (2011)

This is going to be brief. In fact, I'm debating whether or not to even write anything about "Tinker, Tailor, BlahBlah, Whatever." The reason for this is simple: It holds a special distinction.

Now, I've seen a LOT of movies. I've sat through some vile, vile crap. But there are very few movies I've hit the "STOP" button on. I've fast forwarded through some, true, but very seldom have I just not been able to even bring myself to chapter skip to the end. I could probably count them on one hand.

Well, now I might need to use both thumbs.

I couldn't make it through this one, guys. I just couldn't. I'm shocked, honestly, because I really like Gary Oldman, but good gravy was this bad. And it wasn't even the good kind of bad where I could make fun of it. It was just BORING.

What puzzles me is that I've actually sat through movies that were more boring and dull and plodding than this one. For crying out loud, I sat through "Tree of Life," although that was a close one. I think main difference is that while a movie like "Tree of Life" is mindbogglingly boring and dumb, at least I "got it." It was a pretentious art flick. I got it.

What "Tinky Winky Dipsy Po" is though, is a spy movie. And I HATE spy movies. Unless the spy movie's poster contains the phrase "James Bond returns in..." I hate them. And while I can stomach spy movies to a degree, the plot of "Tipsy Turvey Drunk Stupid" is so murky, so understated, so cryptic and so meandering that every 5 minutes or so, I was forced to pause the film and recap the movie out loud to the best of my comprehension, just so that I could try and figure out what, if anything, the scene I was watching was talking about. And most of the time, I was unsuccessful.

After a while, I was ready to crack. It seemed like I had been watching this movie for 3 and a half hours, and at no point did I approach anything resembling a firm grasp on who was who or what they were doing. So finally, in desperation, I did what I always do when I'm not enjoying a movie: I hit the "select" button on my PS3 remote to see how much time was left.

I wasn't even an hour into the film. There was still about 60% of the movie left to go.

With a mighty roar of "Are you FRAKKING kidding me?!" I hit the stop button. I'm not proud of this, but it had to be done. I have better things to do with my life.

I know as a self-styled critic, it is important to watch movies. But there was really no reason for me to keep watching "Wynken, Blynken, Nod." It's every lousy spy movie I've ever seen, only on a morphine drip. It's so slow that "2001: A Space Odyssey" would lap it. You could clock the edits with an egg timer. Characters just seem to appear out of nowhere and start talking like they're vitally important, when I didn't have the slightest clue who any of them were. And finally, after seeing that I wasn't even halfway through, I realized there was no coming back. And I didn't care.

THE BOTTOM LINE - Skip, skip, skip, dear GOD skip it. The only conceivable way I could in good conciseness recommend this movie is if you are just a die-hard sheep who cannot physically get enough spy movies. If you thought something like "The Good Sheppard" was interesting or something...maybe. I just could not find the motivation to spend another hour of my life watching this crap.