Director: Anton Corbijn.
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright, Grigori Dobrygin.
Certificate: 15.
Running Time: 122 minutes.
Synopsis: A Chechen Muslim illegally immigrates to Hamburg, where he gets caught in the international war on terror.
Adapted from the John le Carré best seller, A MOST WANTED MAN is the latest film from Anton Corbijn, a filmmaker who cut his teeth on Nineties music videos and delivered the intelligently-crafted monochromatic Control, an exploration into the life of Joy Division frontman Ian Curtis. His latest boasts an eclectic cast who flit about the espionage-inflected backdrop to which they are set; when shady Chechen Muslim Issa Karpov illegally immigrates to Germany, he is ensnared in a post-9/11 covert spy unit led by its grizzled chief Günther Bachmann.
Unlike the novel, it is this character – played by the late Philip Seymour Hoffman – who leads us through procedures, his heavy-breathing spymaster who rattles the ice around his whiskey tumbler as obsessively as he investigates the refugee providing A MOST WANTED MAN with its calibre.
Rachel McAdams turns in a refined performance as Annabel Richter, a German immigration lawyer intent on defending the defenceless alongside Willem Dafoe’s British banker, Tommy Brue (the novel’s primary protagonist). Both are suitably terrific, especially McAdams – her presence elevating an otherwise bleak affair. Robin Wright’s appearance as a ruthless US agent, while icily brilliant, gives the feeling that she is playing an alternate version of her House of Cards counterpart Claire Underwood; no terrible thing, but it does make you wish access to Netflix is nearby.
Such is the quality of all involved, it almost feels that Corbijn is happy to sit back and allow events to baggily unfold, coasting until the film’s final third which doesn’t so much demand your attention as threatens you to miss it; a nail-bitingly taut set-piece which indicates just how great this film could have been.
Unsurprisingly, this is Seymour Hoffman’s film – not quite his final role (there’s another Hunger Games film to come yet) but a standout performance in a film that can’t quite match him. It’s fitting how A Most Wanted Man’s final scene is its peak, Hoffman delivering another bravura performance to add to his roster of many. This is the film’s real most wanted man.
[usr=3] A MOST WANTED MAN is released in UK cinemas from 12th September, 2014.
