tibor_g_balogh Very happy for Cold War studies films like this! This mini series is an accurate tool for introducing the Cold War to new students of history who have not live trough this period of time and it is also a great remembrance and respect for the struggle that is now a part of history, and all the lives lost during this period of time considered "peace- period" just after WWII and up to 1989...I also very much like films like "The Lives of Others" Stazi East-German documentary and drama film and Ted Turner 10-part series "Cold War" which is pure documentary ...Thanks for making such films!---[ this following part added NOV-2016 ]---A second look at "the Company" CIA mini-series made for television, I can sum it up as a Jewish production showcasing Jewish ladies, and how Jews controlled both sides of the "Cold War" game, trading information to their advantage at the expense of nationals everywhere, also the film could not find a proper Hungarian language speaking actor for the part of the 1956 uprising leader, it used an actor who did not even speak Hungarian what-so-ever and made the freedom fighter civilians look like in-humane UN-compromising murderers for wanting revenge against the AVH secret internal security communist police whose top political leaders were Jewish, then the film minimized the 1956 Hungarian uprising against soviet communism by the Suez Canal distraction that Hebrews engineered as an emergency measure to distract western audiences, ... it is my view that the whole film is about Jews bragging how petty their females are/were and how many non Jewish people died or were sacrificed on both sides of the Cold War that they managed ... this is in line with David Duke's opinions on WWII in his Jewish Supremacism audio-book, just that this film brags this message covertly flying above the intelligence of the general audience >>> more over >>> as Jewish Supremacism and other sources (jewish encyclopedia) highlights Jews using secret societies (Freemasons) took over first Britain and then undermined every other "crown/monarchy" in Europe creating the French revolution and sending Marx-Engels-Lenin to Russia to create Bolshevik revolution (chaos) that undermined ANY economic-empire or technical competition from Russia so that Freemason England-America- France can have UN-molested world domination, Hebrews having successfully undermined and later crashed Soviets with Germans in WWII, >>> more over >>> the film makes no mention of Donivan's OSS which is where the CIA came from, it also makes no mention of the concurrent four-eyes (us-uk- Canada-Au) plus one (New-Zealand) also known as ECHLON total world wide signals intelligence collection and analysis program ongoing since before WWII but in place for the entire Cold War period and working overtime, recording/analyzing every single UN-encrypted voice conversation, the "ENIGMA" film of BlatchleyPark-UK of WWII is a good start where ECHLON took off from, and yes USA broke the Japanese code PURPLE and were fully aware of attack on Pearl Harbor, in fact Freemasons world wide needed USA in WWII ...((I can see why some of these ideas may be missed by general audiences everywhere))

TKDLion8 This is a brilliantly executed and really satisfying miniseries. They did a great job casting this series; every actor and actress gives a performance truthful to the character they are playing. The look of each time period was captured quite well. The locations and sets look really good.I bought this after watching the Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy miniseries (which is vastly superior to the recent movie) and was hungry for more fiction about intelligence agencies. If you like spy stuff along the line of John le Carre then you will like this miniseries.If you like cold war history then you will like this miniseries. This miniseries takes you through pretty much the entire cold war. It was really enjoyable to watch a program about the things that had just been covered in my latest history class.It is a bit biased perhaps but don't let that bother you. After all, it is told from the perspective of CIA agents.I am very satisfied with my purchase and I am sure that I will watch this series again in the future.

Sean Gallagher I haven't read enough of Robert Littell's novels to know if he's the American version of Frederick Forsyth, Graham Greene, or my personal favorite, John le Carre, but I've liked the novels of his I've read, and one day, I hope someone makes a good adaptation of one of them. THE AMATEUR, filmed in 1981, was faithful to the plot of the novel for the most part, but was done in a plodding, mechanical style and further hampered by a one-note performance by John Savage in the lead role; only Christopher Plummer's wry turn as the head of the Czech Secret Service (he also poses as a professor) was worth watching. This made-for-TNT miniseries isn't as bad as THE AMATEUR, but it also falls short of the novel.Littell's novel was an epic roman a clef about the history of the CIA, with the usual blending of factual and fictional characters, and while it traveled well-worn territory (and not quite as substantial in that regard as le Carre's novels are), it's still an entertaining read. Obviously, when filming a long novel, even for a miniseries like this, some things have to go, but it's disappointing when great material is here, and the adapters (director Mikael Solomon and writer Ken Nolan) don't bring it to life on screen.Part of the problem is it seems like a greatest-hits version of the novel. You get the various incidents, like the Hungary uprising in 1956, and the Bay of Pigs, but there's no flow to the story. Solomon and Littell also cut out the humor of the novel - the character of Yevgeny, the Russian agent, for example, has a great fatalism about him (in the book, when asked what one of the principles of Marxism (I think) is, he replies, "A spy in hand is worth two in the bush?"), and Rory Cochrane could have played it as such, yet he does absolutely nothing with the part (he's certainly capable of it, so I'd like to think it's not his fault). Also a lot of the subplots are given to the character of Jack MacAuliffe, and Chris O'Donnell simply isn't equipped to handle them all. Speaking of O'Donnell, another problem is while the scope of the story is for 40 years, none of the characters really age, with the possible exception of Alfred Molina (as Harvey, code-named "The Sorcerer") and Michael Keaton (as real-life deputy director of counter-intelligence James Angleton). O'Donnell just looks like O'Donnell with a gray wig. The only actors who make much of an impression are Molina and Keaton. Overall, "The Company", while not terrible, definitely could have been a lot better.

nestaft I've just watched this series in the UK where we've got it on the BBC for some reason 18 months after it premiered in the US. For lovers of historically based fiction and it how it relates to our modern world it was certainly enjoyable and dramatic in places. I enjoyed some of the acting particularly from Michael Keaton , Rory Cochrane and Tom Hollander. If these 3 men were more photogenic, or we did'nt live in such a superficial world , I 'm sure these fantastic actors would have a lot more exposure than they have had done and bagged a lot more high profile roles , instead of the ludicrously over-hyped likes of Brad Pitt and Leonardo Di Caprio. Also this series gave us a look at some of the espionage machinations and seminal events shaping the Cold War.However it had numerous rather large flaws. Firstly the series insulted the intelligence of the viewer by being too overly pro CIA in viewpoint in places. The CIA were portrayed as basically good guys laying it on the line to defend capitalism, valiantly soldiering on despite betrayal by self serving politicians and shady moles. This overlooks the numerous morally questionable and some might say ultimately self defeating operations and strategies of the CIA during the cold war, which anyone with a reasonably inquisitive mind can find out about. It is of course a good thing that America "won" the cold war, and on balance even with all its flaws , democratic capitalism was and is a superior system to totalitarian communism. However the filmmakers should have trusted the viewers to come to that conclusion themselves without overly trying to force it. The film The Good Sheperd which covers some of the same ground as this series was far more effective in highlighting some of the shady ethical ground America covered in trying to win the Cold warSecondly I think the series was too ambitious in trying to deal with such an important and long period of history in such a small running time. The Mini series should have been longer and this I think would have given us a more nuanced and detailed look at the time in historyit covered. Also some details of the storyline were incredulous and have been mentioned on other posts. Finally I think Chris O'Donnell was a wrong choice to play the main character of the series. His limited acting range lessened the impact of several key dramatic scenes he was involved in . He was just about adequate in the role but there are much better character actors who could have been brought in instead of a past his best film star( nothing personal Chris ) . So in all a decent series , but if you want to learn about the cold war , your best bet remains a wide range of books from your local library or bookshop.