This is a thriller that defies the likes of "Mission: Impossible," an ingenious slow burner that takes pride in weaving a web of intrigue. In an age when most thrillers want to shock you, here's a far more masterful creation slowly ratcheting up the chills. Yes, I loved it.

On the surface, the story's a simple one - Control (John Hurt) is the head of the SIS, the British intelligence service also know as "The Circus."

He believes there is a Russian mole highly placed in the organization and he asks a trusted agent to meet an informant for him as a means of learning the identity of the mole. When the operation falls apart, Control and his right-hand man George Smiley (Gary Oldman) are first forced into retirement and then reactivated to finish this crucial mission.

Director Tomas Alfredson has molded a sprawling outline. Spanning the course of an entire year and pursuing a number of different stories and secretive missions - conducted by a myriad of ingenious characters - this is a labyrinth that slowly reveals itself, uncoiling slowly as we realize the deceptively simple plot is far more complicated than we initially suspected.

Considering the many twists and turns, it would be unwise for me to reveal the plot's details. As one might expect, however, so much of the suspense here is generated through character mystique: Who can be trusted? Who is lying? When will the enemy slip up?

At the center of it all is the chess master Smiley. As played by Oldman, Smiley is a quiet, thoughtful, deeply intense man for whom work is more than a matter of paycheck. To Smiley, his job in the circus is about keeping his homeland, his way of life, his country, safe from outside threats that would seek to destroy it. The idea of a mole working against him and his country, while also being a member of that country, goes beyond professional threats; it's personally offensive.

At the beginning of the film, he seems inscrutable. But as we begin to learn the mission that he's on, and the ways in which he is mounting the evidence toward his conclusion, he gathers a momentum that is riveting - and unshakable.

It's primarily thanks to Smiley that "Tinker Tailor" swells in intensity, wrapping its methodical cat-and-mouse game in a potent layer of emotion. As this serpentine mission unravels, slowly at first and then violently, Smiley gradually becomes unhinged, and as he sets his power and intelligence on his adversaries, we quickly realize there's no going back.

This is one of the most satisfying thrillers in years - an old-fashioned genre fixture that takes flight on the wings of a dynamic, and deceptive, cast. Trust no one.

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