There's an authenticity about the performance from Richard Burton in this cold war thriller that, alongside some well paced direction from Martin Ritt really helps it hit home. His character ("Leamas") is assigned one final task, to deal with the duplicitous Peter van Eyck ("Mundt") who appears to be systematically removing the West's reliable sources of information. What follows is a far more psychological cat-and-mouse game as he gets apprehended, and has to play a very dangerous game balancing the needs of his mission with his own survival instincts - all of this without much clue as to whom... read the rest.