Review of A Most Wanted Man (2014) by Mike N — 13 Sep 2014

It's hard to find a good, honest spy story these days. Between James Bond and Jack Bauer doing more running shooting and screwing than the entire CIA put together and Homeland only being a realistic depiction of intelligence work if you're a paranoid Isamaphobe with a terrorist fetish, any hope of seeing an honest depiction of spy work on screen seemed lost until Gary Oldman and co. brought to life the classic tale of espionage by John le Care, Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Now, from that same author comes A Most Wanted Man, in the hands of master director Anton Corbijn and a cast led by the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman. How could it possibly be bad?

Well, it isn't. It doesn't fail, but nor does it particularly soar. The narrative is compelling enough to keep one watching but lethargic enough to make it obvious its source material was a book, a narrative form afforded the luxury of being able to explore inner-monologues during otherwise dull but necessary stakeouts and observations (one wonders if Freidkin had stuck to the true story in The French Connection how engaging the film would have been). The film is set in Germany, Hamburg to be specific, which gives the film some intrigue solely from presenting u a locale otherwise unseen in an Amero/Anglo-centric cinematic landscape. Yet, such a location brings frustration in the form of the cast, almost all of whom (from Rachel McAdams to Willem DaFoe) are about as far from German as one can get, save Daniel Bruhle. One can justify it in their minds with "Well, what other German actors are even remotely known over here besides him? Just Bruno Ganz, but he's just an old fat man now" until you realize the lead role in the film is that of an old fat man, given in this case to Phillip Seymour Hoffman with a passable accent.

In fact, just about everything in A Most Wanted Man is passable, from the "let's recycle Clair Underwood" casting of Robin Wright to the redemption story which still retains some Islamophobia (no, John le Care, we're not at war with "a Nation called Islam";), but that's not a bad thing. A Most Wanted Man never reaches the heights of the other le Care adaptation, but it never truly fails either. It could do with some more action (and from one painful "tracking shot in Kapo"-esque scene, a wholly different editor), but it entertains for the moment. To put it in spy film terms, if Tinker Tailor is From Russia With Love, A Most Wanted Man is Thunderball. And that's fine by us.