A Most Wanted Man (2014)

User Review

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  Barneyonmovies

  9 / 10

  WHAT I LIKED: 'A Most Wanted Man,' is perhaps the best John Le Carré adaptation ever to find its way to the big screen, as what director Anton Corbijn and writer Andrew Bovell do here is bring the central themes forward perfectly - not by stripping things down, but by painting the narrative with all the nuance and time it deserves to translate properly. It's the story of an anti-terrorism investigator with undercover agents attempting to investigate individual cases to solve mysteries higher and higher up the terrorism food chain. But as the film develops it becomes increasingly clear that it's an almost impossible battle - largely because government organisations are simply looking for quick fixes without tackling the real problems at the top. That's an interesting (and thoroughly disheartening) message, but it's only brought to life and understood because the twists and turns of Le Carré's narrative are given the attention they deserve by the script - not with characters endlessly explaining plots, but by witnessing the central investigator solving mysteries and us discovering things with him. That's an intelligent way to tell a story, and whilst keeping nuances isn't always the right way to bring a novel to the big screen, the way everything builds to serve the central message here means it's absolutely necessary.
  Helping with this growing sense of the problem and the helplessness that comes along with it is of course the ever-perfect central performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman in his final lead role, as what he brings to the central character here is such a sense of melancholy that clearly comes from his abundance of knowledge and willingness to solve the biggest of impossible problems - all helped by a script that hints perfectly at what he's seen. This general melancholy also brilliantly extends to the texture of the film too though, as Corbijn and his cinematographer Benoît Delhomme shoot against the lifeless Brutalist backdrops of Berlin and Hamburg in blues, greys and yellows, and this - combined with a brilliantly minimalist score from Herbert Grönemeyer - works to paint one very bleak picture indeed; arguably in the manor of a Michael Mann film only without any of the epic grandeur. That overall sense of desparation against such an impossible task for our central character then of course promotes the themes behind this narrative even further, and when everything comes to a conclusion in the brilliant third act, you'll be truly on the edge of your seat and rooting for Hoffman's character. It's one excellent film this, and it doesn't always get the love it deserves as a film beyond its magnificent central performance.
  
  WHAT I DIDN'T LIKE: Perhaps getting to know the central character on a more personal level in the script might have provided more emotional engagement, but Hoffman does do a great job of unlocking the humanity that we otherwise may not have gotten.
  
  VERDICT: A smart espionage thriller that takes Le Carré's story and themes and gives them the time and nuance they deserve to paint a thoroughly melancholic picture of the difficulty of tackling modern terrorism. 'A Most Wanted Man,' is one very engaging and thought-provoking watch indeed, and is elevated even further by a perfect performance from the late Philip Seymour Hoffman.

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