A Most Wanted Man
A MOST WANTED MAN (15)
D: Anton Corbijn
Lionsgate/Demerest/Potboiler/Film4 (Stephen Cornwell, Gail
Egan, Malte Grunert, Simon Cornwell, Andrea Calderwood)
UK 2014
122 mins
Thriller
W: Andrew Bovell [based on the novel by John le
Carré]
DP: Benoît Delhomme
Ed: Claire Simpson
Mus: Herbert Grönemeyer
Philip Seymour Hoffman (Günther Bachmann), Rachel
McAdams (Annabel Richter), Willem Dafoe (Tommy Brue), Robin Wright (Martha Sullivan), Grigoriy Dobrygin (Issa Karpov), Daniel Brühl (Max), Nina Hoss (Irna Frey), Homayoun Ershadi (Dr. Faisal
Abdullah)
Like most John le Carré adaptations, A Most Wanted Man is a
heavy-going political thriller with a complex backstory and meandering, long-winded narrative.
Philip Seymour Hoffman, in his last perfomance before his
untimely death, plays a government agent with a history. He targets a Muslim terrorist with links to 9/11 and arranges his own team to bring him to justice, while a rival agency want to be the
ones to get their man first.
The complexities of the plot never really solve themselves,
and though the film can be commended for its anti-Hollywood ending, the film is merely a shaggy dog story.
Worth watching for Philip Seymour Hoffman's swansong, but it
isn't a thriller that will be most wanted by everyone.
6/10
