A Most Wanted Man (2014)

I love a good, gritty, low-key thriller. This movie is not that.

The John Le Carre characters are watered down and distilled to meaninglessness and boredom. None of their motivations are discernible, and the different figures are mostly just there to look sinister, smoke, drink and walk around in Hamburg. The complex Le Carre plot, shrunk to movie length, is completely incomprehensible. Pretty much nothing happens during the entire movie - and by nothing I don't just mean that there are no action scenes (that would be okay) but that there simply is no story. The much lauded "final scene" is just as incomprehensible, meaningless and ridiculous as the rest of the movie.

Nothing in this film interested me at all, except (a little bit) Hoffman's final performance (which, let's face it, is not that exceptional were it not for the fact that it was his final) and, mostly, the interesting Hamburg and German scenery.

Don't see it, it's not worth it.

Fmovies: The plot hardly matters here; it's only a vehicle for exploring the dirty side of intelligence work and is complicated as a Swiss watch. Maybe the NSA revelations have you thinking twice about spywork? The fact that we caught spying on our own allies, the Germans, adds a special relevance to this tale. But the real appeal here is a)LeCarre's dark, dark, dark worldview and b) Hoffman's superb acting. He just tosses this role off, and is utterly convincing. After you see this you should see the film that perfectly bookends it: LeCarre's early '60s The Spy Who Came in From the Cold. Just as gritty and dirty and with Richard Burton as Alec Leamus. Like Gunther Bachmann,Leamus was a worn-out, beat-up, used-up operative, and audiences of the time, entranced by the frivolities of James Bond, were rather shocked by the dose of reality he represented.

A Most Wanted Man is a thoroughly engaging movie which sadly includes Phillip Seymour Hoffman's final performance. He is wonderful in the film and is surrounded by a solid cast, though not nearly as good as Hoffman. Similar to Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, the pace is moderate with almost no summer blockbuster action. It's a wonderful pallet cleanser for anyone who enjoys a thriller and has already seen a bunch of the latest CGI showcases.

Tinker Tailor is more difficult to understand than this movie as A Most Wanted Man weaves a fairly straight forward plot. Some reviews I read before seeing the film had me thinking twice about reading the wikipedia plot synopsis before I went into the theater, but I ventured in without doing so and didn't have any trouble keeping up. I'll also be happy to see it again on Blu-Ray in my home theater and will surely catch much more of the subtle nuances.

It's well worth the $10+ bucks to see it if you have a good theater nearby, but if you miss it this summer, it's 100% worth the time to watch it at home. The scenes are beautifully shot, but don't require an IMAX sized screen to enjoy.

A Most Wanted Man fmovies. As much as I respect and at times love director Anton Corbijn's and author John Le Carré's emphasis on realism, this movie is bogged down by a lack of focus on one story-defining goal, which is rather realistic but makes for a difficult watch.

Before anyone gets mad: I am well aware that this is Philip-Seymour Hoffman's last completed film - which was actually the reason for me to go see it. And he is good. PSH-good. Meaning, by the standards of most other actors he is GREAT, but by PSH-standards its a pretty run-of-the- mill role that does not call for a great performance and Hoffman plays it like that: A neat little movie experience in Germany that came along and that he probably did not take too seriously, obviously not suspecting that it would be his final starring role. And he does well when you compare it to Willem Dafoe's performance, which he apparently took very seriously. At times Dafoe seems to hinge on the verge of overacting, at least when compared to the other actors and his surroundings.

But the real trouble, as I said, is the story. It starts out as an espionage thriller focusing on the question whether Issa, a Chechen Muslim having entered Germany illegally, has come as a terrorist and is planning on meeting fundamentalists or other radical elements and maybe blow something up. Slowly the focus then shifts without ever clarifying that Bachmann (Hoffman) and his team no longer suspect Issa to be dangerous, but somehow they start acting like they have come to that conclusion. The focus keeps shifting and in the end you realize the movie was about something totally different all along which it didn't stress. Because it is something that Bachmann would have had to stress and he is not the kind of character who goes on tantrums over things, so it is realistic but makes the storyline seem a little crooked.

Add to that that around the middle the team decides for a course of action that seems drastic at first but then ends up slowing the entire movie down a bit. For about ten to twenty minutes the whole premise just seems to float and not go anywhere. I felt bored for a while before the pace picked up again.

As a last concern: Rachel McAdams just doesn't belong here. This is not really a critique of her or her acting talents which are fine. But while everybody else looks like the characters they play, she just looks like a Hollywood starlet who came to spice up an independent movie with some glamor. Which is completely out of place. It doesn't help that we all but never see her character, who is supposed to be a lawyer, do anything lawyerly other than speak to Dafoe's rich banker on her client's behalf. She is just an alien in this world of low-life agents and bureaucrats.

What we end up with is a pretty okay movie with some great photography and interesting themes that are, however, not told all that stringently. But if you came to enjoy Hoffman's last performance, you will get your opportunity to enjoy, even if it isn't his most outstanding work. It still shows that the man was a genius on screen.

By the way: If you see this with someone from Germany, prepare that they start giggling when they see "Michael", a government employee aiding Bachmann: The actor is Herbert Grönemeyer, a well-known and often ridiculed pop-singer in Germany who very rarely acts in movies. Germans are primed to laugh at him trying to act (as few remember his pretty well-done starring role in classic "Das Boot").

I caught this movie at the Century Napa Valley Theater(they have a wine bar...naturlich!)after work yesterday while waiting for the homeward bound traffic to die down. It's terrific. A story about German spooks in Hamburg (Mohamed Ata's launch pad) setting a trap for a suspected terrorist financier, and not a single shot is fired, no one is killed, no dead bodies, no impossible martial arts acrobatics and no "amazing" shots of bullets frozen in mid air. In other words, an actual story via the maestro John le Carre. The ending is really infuriating, but probably representative of how a lot of these efforts have ended up since 9/11. Philip Seymour Hoffman is over the top as the head spook. I'm sure going to miss him.

Unusually, all the main characters are played by American/Canadian actors. Not a single Brit or Aussie and Germans only in supporting roles. Another reason it's a real one-off.

Check it out!

There's not very many movies I've seen in the past year that measure up as well as A Most Wanted Man. Granted, I've seen a lot of fun or interesting films that I definitely enjoyed, but this one really hits the mark in a way that others didn't. It transcends being entertaining and becomes its own sort of enigma. But I don't want to give the impression that it's hard to understand, because it certainly isn't. The plot is easy to follow (once you get used to the German accents), and each character has their own tendencies that you pick up on quickly, but I never quite knew what was about to happen. I was kept on my toes, or on the edge of my seat rather, and I appreciated how unpredictable it was.

Set in Hamburg, Germany, it centers around a secret group of anti-terrorism operatives lead by Günther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman). After coming across a brutally tortured Chechen immigrant who turns up in the local Islamic community, and is laying claim to his father's corrupt fortune, they attempt to establish his true identity and motives. And with the US taking close interest as well, it becomes a slow-burn thriller that unfolds with a huge amount of style and elegance.

It's the kind-of movie you'd want to curl up by the fireplace and watch on a cold December night. Hoffman (who is never not smoking a cigarette in this) delivers one of the best performances in his career, rivaling his role in Capote. And the direction by Anton Corbijn is outstanding, giving it a sharp and neat feel that carries throughout. The more I think about it, the more I like it. It's a definite must-see.