A MOST WANTED MAN (review)

Review by Benn Robbins

Anton Corbijn’s A Most Wanted Man is stellar film making and a visual smorgasbord of beautiful camerawork and phenomenal acting.

Based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré and starring the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman in his last completed film (Hunger Games: Mockingjay Part 1 & 2 were made before this but are being released after it) as Günther Bachmann a German intelligence officer who is working to decipher whether or not a half-Chechen, half-Russian, brutally tortured immigrant that has turned up in Hamburg’s Islamic community is really the victim he claims to be or if he is another extremist with an agenda for terror.

Taught and very methodical, A Most Wanted Man kept me riveted the entire 2 hours.

Corbijn, has taken the marvelous words of le Carré and transposed them into a masterful film. Gorgeous cinematography and an eye for details this film never wastes a single frame and unless you are paying close attention you are bound to miss a very important clue or two as the mystery unfolds.

Joining Hoffmann are Russian actor Grigoriy Dobrygin as the enigma, Isss Karpov, the Chech man who looks to claim his father’s vast ill gotten riches and Rachel McAdams (Sherlock Holmes, The Notebook) as his lawyer Annabel Richter. Willem Dafoe played the banker with a past who may or may not be tied to Issa’s past and now controls his future.   
  
No spy film would be complete without the presence of the always brash and know it all CIA, this time represented by Martha Sullivan, a true American spook played wonderfully by Robin Wright (The Princess Bride, Netflix’s House of Cards series).

To tell you even a little bit about this film will be to give it all away so I am slightly hamstrung in my ability to properly review this film.

Suffice it to say that if you loved the recent Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy (also a John le Carré novel) starring Gary Oldman, or any myriad of political intrigue film or stories, then you will love this.

Corbjin and crew have crafted such a tightly knit story what paces well and keeps you guessing without the use of “red herrings” or “Macguffins”. What you get is a brilliantly acted, character driven “nail bitter” that ends both satisfyingly and gut wrenchingly.

Alas I feel I may have already said to much.

Go see this film.