Review of A Most Wanted Man (2014) by Simon T — 13 Aug 2018

Apart from the (predictably) fine acting, Anton Corbijn manages to make a fairly uneventful narrative gripping and understandable. So often in spy dramas the audience is left to fend for itself while the screenplay does the splits trying to confuse and befuddle.

Here, Corbijn is as interested in his characters' individual solitude, and the moral compromises each has to make to keep their heads above water. In his final role, Seymour Hoffman presents a fat monosyllabic self-destructive spymaster.

It's a marvellous swansong, although he should have cut half the smoking scenes.