Review of A Most Wanted Man (2014) by Hatem A — 01 Feb 2015

3.5/4.0.

I must admit that I am a big fan of espionage thrillers, a genre that is so much in short supply in Hollywood. John le Carre ("The Constant Gardner", "Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy") provides a great source material (the film is based on his 2008 novel of the same name) but in the hands of Dutch director Anton Corbijn (who surprisingly directed George Clooney in the bore that is "The American") and with a cast like this, "A Most Wanted Man" is a great spy movie, one of the best John le Carre adaptations and one of 2014's gems.

It is also another great showcase for late actor Philip Seymour Hoffman in his last leading film role. Here he sports a perfect German accent and plays Günther Bachmann, leader of a secret team that gathers intelligence on the local Muslim community. Hoffman's character is calm and weary but smart and determined.

When Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin who's quite good playing a haunted soul), a refugee from Chechnya enters Hamburg illegally, he is at first believed to be a terrorist and is tracked but later used as a tool to fry a bigger fish, an Islamic philanthropist (Homayoun Ershadi) who is believed to be channeling funds to terrorist organizations.

I won't reveal much of the plot here but I must say that thanks to the script by Andrew Bovell ("Edge of Darkness"), the film manages to weave a good number of plotlines, characters and twists without feeling too complicated or redundant. The uniformly good cast includes Rachel McAdams as an immigration lawyer who helps Issa, the great Willem Dafoe (in quite a different role for him) as a banker whose father had a close relationship with Issa's dad and Robin Wright as an American diplomatic attaché.