A Most Wanted Man

A Most Wanted Man

The title “The Last Leading Role of Philip Seymour Hoffman” adds to Anton Corbijn’s “A Most Wanted Man” a weight it may not have wanted. The whole play feels haunted by the fact that we are watching one of America’s greatest actors playing his last leading man, and this is especially so because the character played by PSH is a world-weary and melancholy person, someone who seems to have run out of both patience and time.

After his death it became impossible for me not to think about what cinema lost in losing him whenever I looked at any of his performances but never before did it feel as though this tragic event actually altered anything about them (I managed to get over it during “God’s Pocket,” the “Capote” screening at Ebertfest and will probably do so again when I see “Mockingjay” later this year).

Assembled around solid performances and boasting high production values, most of the action in “A Most Wanted Man” takes place somewhere beyond arm’s reach for Corbijn who fails to find its heart. What he does is keep us detached from narrative itself while making us preoccupied with how much has been lost by movie world.

Hoffman plays Gunther Bachmann, a man caught up in red tape. He cannot do his job because government does not trust him neither gives necessary tools for operation. An intelligence expert based in Hamburg Germany will never be same after serving as home base for 9/11 hijackers; why didn’t entire intelligence community there realize what was going on?

Following that incident Bachmann (whose team includes Daniel Bruhl and Nina Hoss) has been working on shifting sands: every now & then there comes some new directive from above which necessitates change or adjustment somewhere down line but still no one knows where they are supposed end up exactly because those people only know how react but don’t understand true nature things involved. These days authorities want to hit every nail sticking out but Bachmann believes that it’s patience which pays off most in his line of work.

One day Russian immigrant Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) arrives seeking asylum and looking for his father’s money; turns out the latter is not only very rich but also extremely dangerous person. Half Chechen half-Russian Muslim such background does raise eyebrows among members of Bachmann’s team as well as their superiors above who would rather see him arrested immediately without any further ado. However, Gunther knows better than anyone else that capturing him alone won’t solve anything so they begin following leads from there.

Banker Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe) becomes object interest when approached by Issa with regard to his dad’s ill-gotten gains; Rachel McAdams plays human rights activist Annabel Richter whose involvement in Le Carre’s plot proves key just like CIA officer Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) plus Islamic leader Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi).

Each participant comes into play at some point during spy game as is often case with stories by this author eg “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” or “The Constant Gardener”; it’s amazing how much suspense can be generated around these parts even though hardly anything blows up here! Every choice made, every truth told/kept hidden might bring down whole intricate structure which must stand if another 9/11 is to be averted according to Bachmann thus painting picture where spies live lives full frustrations dead ends forever.

It is also a frigid and distant movie; more so than necessary. With “Constant Gardner” and “Tinker Tailor,” audiences were drawn into their convoluted worlds through relatable characters, the majority of which were played by Rachel Weisz and Gary Oldman in these roles respectively, however Corbijn provides no such entry point into “A Most Wanted Man.”

In Hoffman’s staccato German accented delivery there are hints of humanity but the issue lies within Annabel and Issa’s relationship. This should serve as the heart and soul of this film against the cold visual palette that has been chosen for everything else by him and his team among rotating life or death decision making conference room fans lined with metal plates used for surveillance windows: a tortured broken Muslim/Chechen young man looking desperately for anything human to latch onto.

But unfortunately it seems as if they were both just plot devices for Anton Corbijn who doesn’t seem to care enough about them or any other character besides that matter.

Anton Corbijn is a filmmaker of meticulousness and precision, qualities which brought an overlooked level of detail to the film ‘The American.’ His precision here underscores Le Carre’s futility in a spy game where no one can ever win. In today’s world there are never winners or losers when it comes down to espionage. It isn’t an utter failure though its shortcomings serve not only as reminders on how much humanity we’ve lost globally since 9/11 but also reflect that some wonderful actors have bid us farewell too soon.

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