Violent spy movie deserves its R-rating

I’m baffled that critic Andy Klein is “baffled” by an R-rating for the big screen version of “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy.”

In his Jan. 8 review, “John le Carre’s ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ is hard to follow,” he says “there are one or two gory close-ups, but even those are mild stuff…”

In the opening scene, a bullet hits a young mother in the temple while the baby still nurses at her breast. A disemboweled man’s entrails float in the bathtub around him.

To intimidate another prisoner, a woman is shot point blank in the head in front of him; her brain matter spatters on the wall and slowly drips to the floor. A sniper shoots his target just under the eye.

Mr. Klein and audiences today like him — who are apparently inured to sadistic movie violence they regard as “mild stuff” — leave me in despair.

Lucy Chase Williams

Glendale