A Most Wanted Man

Because it's le Carré, many have drawn parallels with Tinker Tailor, but the latter is a far superior story. The titular character is no character at all and his story is pretty much a dead end. He is a Chechen who arrives in Hamburg illegally and covertly. He has been to hell and back and as you would expect he bears both the emotional and physical scars of his past, which he relates small snippets of. However, none of this has much impact on the story. His purpose in Hamburg is to claim the €10M his late father left at a bank there. His father is of dubious character and so he then suddenly decides he wants no part in the money after all. We then turn our attention to the money being offered to a known terrorist financier (unwittingly by the Chechen) so that the German Secret Service can use this to lead them to the highest echelons of the organisation and their other financiers and money launderers. This is the problem. By focusing on this part of the story we are simply left with a clichéd dick measuring contest between Gunther (Phillip Seymour Hoffman) who will do it the smart way and take down the whole syndicate and a rival department who just wants to take out the Chechen and go for short-term glory. At this stage I should mention I had a pee break half an hour in, so may have missed something crucial, but this is what troubled me: Gunther is screwed over by the rival department and by an American Spook, played by Robin Wright. We know why the rival would, but why would she do this? Nothing is explained about this or the story behind what the €10M was originally for. Also, given the relevance of the subject material in today's news, there is a surprising lack of exploration of the political context. Compare this to Tinker Tailor, where dubious actions and motives were very clearly established and yet skilfully revealed and where there was a memorable bad guy. A Most Wanted Man falls way short in this comparison. Although a period piece, Tinker Tailor feels more relevant to current affairs than this film. The Acting is excellent as is the Direction, even the Writing isn't at all bad, but the story itself may leave you underwhelmed.

This film can best be summed up as the sound of cigarettes burning, ice and whiskey clinking around in tumblers and Phillip Seymor Hoffman breathing laboriously. Now, I love a quiet and gritty film but these sounds of the mundane become more significant than the plot. Critics want to love this film due to Hoffman's unfortunate passing but it lacks expression. The climax is weak. Again, it relies on the textures and sounds of the mundane to create tension and suspense. And this film doesn't end, it just stops. It only inspired conversations of 100 ways to make it better. I'm sure that many will imply that people who do not favor this film are simply not sophisticated enough to understand its subtle complexity but in truth, this is just a boring movie that fails to deliver any thrills.

Yesterday I saw this movie and I just had to write something about it. Why? Because this is the most boring movie (by far) I have ever seen. Another example of why Dutch directors should never make movies. It's not only boring, but it's full of plot-holes, bad acting and lack of character building/ background etc etc. Mr. Corbijn should really stick to making photo's and video clips, make short films. It's a pity that the last movie PSH made, had to be this one... I really don't understand why other people rate this movie higher than with one star. It's suppose to be a thriller, but really nothing happens. Don't waste your time (2 hours!!!) and money on this one, pick another film to watch.

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.

This film is so boring it's really hard to describe. If you like long periods of watching Philip Seymour Hoffman driving in his car, or standing around smoking, then this is your kind of film. This film is so slow it's even slow for a John le Carre book. The film is so slow you don't have to worry about a toilet break. In fact, you'll probably see more action in the hallway than you will in the film. If you haven't guessed, I'm an action junkie when it comes to spy films. But I can also enjoy the "Tinker Tailor" type of film because I enjoy good acting and good direction. But this film has neither. The actors are uniformly poor. Only Grigoriy Dobrygin does a good job. And who came up with the idea of asking Hoffman, William Dafoe, Rachel McAdams et al to use a German accent. It's pathetic. They flip in and out of their attempts, but even at their best it's comical. Poor acting and dreadful direction are only two of the problems here. An overly enthusiastic musical score will try to convince you that something is happening, but it isn't, and after a while, the music is actually intrusive. Sometime about 30 minutes into the film you'll think about escaping and trying the film next door. But you'll convince yourself that with these talented people the film will come around. It won't. Escape while you can.

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!

It is going to be very difficult to write a ten line review for this film considering nothing happened for two hours. The movie started out slow and I kept wondering when it was going to pick up... it never did. The guy who is supposed to be the "suspected" terrorist didn't speak more than 10 times in the movie. He just moped around and looked like a creeper. Next Rachel McAdams' character knows nothing about this guy but offers to take him in. Even when she reads a news article about a suicide bombing and he states "gods will" she's still willing to stick around and help this guy. soooo.... obviously she has issues. Next... spoiler alert.... the real "bad guy" is caught by just signing a paper. The two hour movie led up to A GUY...SIGNING....A PIECE.... OF PAPER. Worst bad guy/villain in any movie I have ever seen. The previews before the film were more interesting and had more action than this movie. Please spare yourself the two hours and pick a different movie.... Whoever thought it was a good idea to waste millions of dollars producing a film about a guy who signs a piece of paper should seriously rethink their career.

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").

Being a huge fan of Philip Seymour-Hoffman and having liked Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy so much, I was almost sure this was going to be a brilliant movie. Maybe because of this expectation I was really, really disappointed. There is no nuance or subtleness and the characters are really flat without any depth. Also the quality of the conversations (which were great in Tinker Tailor) are rubbish. The most powerful line in the movie is 'To make the world a safer place', how cheesy is that? Bachmann is intelligent enough to manipulate everybody. He can make a boy betray on his father (which may not be even the bad guy), but as magnificent as he is, he is dumb enough to not see the plans of the Americans blending in and screwing him up for the second time. As brilliant as his team is, they cannot figure out that maybe, Issa stays at the apartment of the lawyer's brother. I could go on endlessly about things like this who just don't make any sense. Issa has traveled across Europe to get his money, suddenly he doesn't want the money, and suddenly he does want the money. And all these very important moments in the plot just happen, we can't even see how. Oh and of course the bracelet, dear god. Issa has been in prison for his whole life, being able to cope with extreme torture, travel across Europe and honoring his mother all along the way. But when he meets up with a blond three times, he thinks, well just let me give you the most precious thing I own. Makes perfectly sense. All the characters, all the dialogues are just very simple and basic. An intelligence guy who drinks and smokes a lot with a long legged assistant with a secret crush on him. A female lawyer who hates her rich dad and travels by bike. The acting was okay though, if you can look through the cheesy dialogues.

Greetings again from the darkness. If you aren't an avid reader of John le Carre' spy novels, perhaps you've seen movie versions such as Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Constant Gardener, or The Russia House. If not, how about director Anton Corbijn's previous film The Amercian (2010 with George Clooney)? The more you've read and seen these, the more you are prepared for this latest. Mr. le Carre' actually was part of MI5 and MI6 (British Intelligence) and uses his experience even so many years ago to provide the type of post 9/11 anti-terrorism spy thriller that doesn't focus on explosions and gun play, but rather the subtleties of communication when very smart people go up against other very smart people who may or may not share their goals. Secrets and misdirection abound. Traps are set, and sly maneuverings are pre-planned. As if all that weren't enough, how about another mesmerizing performance from the late Philip Seymour Hoffman? He is a master at the top of his craft here. Sure, maybe the German accent is a bit distracting at first, but it was necessary because movie audiences needed a constant reminder that he is not playing an American! I cannot explain how this chain-smoking, mumbling schlub can so dominate a scene and disappear into a character, but Hoffman most certainly does both. In addition to a very cool script, excellent support work comes from Grigor Dobrygin as Issa, the central figure in Hoffman's character's work, Willem Dafoe as a somewhat shady banker, as well as Robin Wright, Daniel Bruhl, Nina Hoss, Homayoun Ershadi, and Rainer Bock. The only miscast is Rachel McAdams as rich girl turned terrorist sympathizer. Parts of the score were excellent - the droning, ominous piano notes. The composer was Herbert Gronemeyer, a German rock star (you'd never know from the score). This is a delicious, challenging look at international spies and how one never knows where they fall on the food chain ... minnow, barracuda, shark. http://moviereviewsfromthedark.com/