BasicLogic I felt not quite patient to watch this 3 parts series, it's too romantic, it's too obvious who was(were) the mole(s). All the lectures and big words for patriotism on both sides simply rang false, contrite and dramatized like the dialogue delivered on a theater stage. The most serious problem of this series is the DIALOGUE, on and on, every segment in this series, we had to hear, listen to and suffer those not ordinary words spoke out of the regular mouths of common people, what we got were purified, beautified, dramatized unrealistic big words or small talks. Were all these spooks that stupid so they couldn't find the mole(s) among them, just because they worked too close in a confined environment? The traitors among them were just too obvious in this series, the trade crafts of the so-called espionage all seemed to be too elementary and easy with very phony staging simplification. I'm in the middle of reading the original novel now to accommodate with this short series. It's a thick and wordy book, but I do hope it would not turn out too romantic, too poetically unreal.This series was well produced but the staging feeling was also very strong, the tempo was also too slow, dragged on with a overly romantic score, the music didn't give you any tension. All the key roles in it also felt extremely dramatized, acted with exaggerated body language guided by the horrible dialog, making this mole hunt looked and felt like a laughable child play. Because if we viewers could see who's who right away, then it's obvious not too suspenseful to us. We have to tolerate the script developed in a very slow motion speed to catch up our predictions.

michaelwmillwood Of course, an array of particulars were changed (as should be expected for a multitude of reasons). One should note, however, that this movie did in fact portray an even larger number of historically accurate details and/or information. This applies not only to simple global occurrences or events during the so called 'Cold War', but more so to the mannerisms, behaviors, operational methods and habits (both good AND bad / publicly accepted and not) of those patriots employed with or assigned to "The Company." This particularly applies to their relentless dedication, extreme attention to detail, as well as their impossible acceptance of the painstaking patience required in their work! Also, I felt as though the majority of the actor portrayals were "dead-on"... perhaps not the best choice of words for an espionage movie! ;-). In closing, one final thought... the overall GOOD in this movie (storyline, cinematography, overall accuracy... heck, the actors themselves) FAR out weighed whatever little bad that the few 'critics' would point out. That's why, for me at least, this movie was AWESOME!! Thank you. MWM

danabowe This show does things with the history of the CIA that movies like the good shephard could only dream of. Great story, wonderful acting this is one of the best mini-series i've seen. It is the spy show equivalent of what band of brothers was for war shows. The way the show is filmed to show the history of what we didn't get to see during the cold war is brilliant. Alfred Molina is one of the most underrated actors around. Everyone forgot also how great of actors Michael Keaton and Chris O'Donnell are. Their performances are great especially Keaton who plays the ever stubborn MOTHER very well. This to me is one of the great mini-series made right up there with band of brothers and generation kill. A must see.

VeritasV This is an excellent 3 part mini-series. I watched it in one sitting which took about 6 hours including a couple of quick breaks. The pacing is slow and the movie has an overall darkness in terms of color but the characters are so engaging that I remained fascinated from the first screen shot to the last. Chris O'Donnell, Michael Keaton, Alfred Molina and Alessandro Nivola all gave terrific performances. Actually all of the actors were excellent in their roles. The Russian accents were commendable.I liked this very much. While Molina's character says that the world is black and white, good guys and bad guys, O'Donnell's character illuminates the grays for us and ultimately this is what lingers long after the DVD is over. Buy it, rent it, but definitely see it.Robert Little wrote the original book of 900 pages on which this mini-series is based. The book and the DVD differ in some aspects. I've not read the book, but I plan to. Apparently he's written a number of cold war spy novels another of which was made into a movie, "The Amateur".