A Most Wanted Man is going to go down as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final non-Hunger Games film, and the leadup seemed great. It is a spy thriller, based on the book by John le Carre, a great novelist who’s had several books adapted to the big screen, including the awesome Tinker Taylor Soldier Spy. This newest film is heavy on the spying, and while it has some light tension, it is severely lacking in the thrills department.
In all honesty, the espionage in the film is probably most similar to how real spying in today’s world takes place. As moviegoers we are used to the high octane exploits of 007 and Jason Bourne, but in real life I’m sure it more resembles a quiet cat-and-mouse match of wits on the world’s chessboard. This movie has all of that, with the head of Germany’s secret CIA-like group, played by Hoffman, twisting people in subtle ways to get what he wants. There are no big gun fights, no explosions, and the film is overall very quiet and dialogue driven. When his government (and others, including the USA) are putting pressure on his group to nab some terrorist (any terrorist, just to put something in the papers), Hoffman keeps urging caution and patience while he works his way up the food chain to try to get someone truly important to the cell’s organization. The ending is surprising, but too little too late for me. Some of the acting was good, but it was full of American actors giving hard-to-believe fake German accents, which personally always gives me a dose of disbelief from the get-go. Hoffman gave some great performances in great movies over the years, unfortunately this is a great performance in a sub-par film.
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