The Man from U.N.C.L.E. (2015)

This movie really surprised me. Let me state up front that I'm not a Guy Ritchie fan. I didn't care for Lock Stock, Snatch is one of the only DVDs I've ever returned after watching, I was tortured by Swept Away and I fell asleep during the first Sherlock. Having said all that, I really liked this movie. For a guy like Guy, it was very subdued. He is (for the most part) sitting back and letting the photography, props, set and costumes do all the heavy lifting in the style department. At one point this film was supposed to be directed by Steven Soderbergh, was he trying to direct it as though he were Soderbergh? You can certainly see traces of the Ocean's Trilogy in there. Was there some producer keeping him in check like Illya so that he didn't go about smashing heads willy-nilly? Or perhaps he's finally mellowing with age? Whatever the reason is, I am glad for it. There's not enough fun stylishness in the increasingly grim and gritty world of studio filmmaking these days. Too bad it didn't make enough money to start a trend.

Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy (2011)

Of all the various sub-genres in cinema, the paranoid thriller is pretty close to the top of my list. Probably the only sub-genre that could rival it in my personal pantheon is film noir. While revisiting Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy I found myself musing on the similarities between the two genres. Most apparent is the fact that both rely heavily on ambiance. In both cases plot comes in as distant second to mood. I can be absolutely lost in terms of narrative (eg: The Big Sleep or Tinker) while still being absolutely enraptured by the overall tone of the piece.

It's particularly interesting that traditional noir died out in the late 50's and paranoid thrillers started to become a thing in the early 60's. Would it be too far of a reach to say that much like how birds evolved from dinosaurs, paranoid thrillers evolved from film noir? They do share a common skeleton on which everything else is built. At their hearts both genres share the basic human emotions of guilt and loneliness. It's no accident that when someone in Tinker gets shot in the cheek, the wound drips like a tear.