A Most Wanted Man

We went to see A Most Wanted Man, more because it was Phillip Seymour Hoffman’s last movie than because it got good reviews. And to say that we were confused by John Le Carre’s story would be an understatement. Hoffman, wildly (widely?) overweight and scruffy, in a growling monotonal German accent, played Gunther Bachman, head of a secret anti-terrorist group based in Hamburg, Germany. He was a man beset with the weight of his task, to root out terrorist plots similar to the 9/11 attack on the US in 2001. Not to be flip about Hoffman’s death by accident or suicide, I think what may have contributed to his death was that he ran out of cigarettes. In the movie, he smoked constantly, apparently non-stop from beginning to end. Issa Karpov (Grigorly Dobrygin), a young Chechen Muslim has entered Homburg illegally, seeking asylum from the torture he endured in a Russian prison. He wanted to retrieve the fortune his father had accumulated in the European drug trade, wanting to use the money to buy his asylum. He takes temporary refuge with a Muslim family, arranging to contact a lawyer specializing in such matters. Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams) meets with him and agrees to help him get the money from Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe), a banker Issa’s father had known, The rest of the plot involves Bachman’s using Issa’s money to be given to Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi), a moderate Muslim collecting money for charity. But Bachman is certain that part of that money goes to terrorist groups around the world. They erect an elaborate plan to see if that is true. Whew! I’m confused just trying to write about it, let alone understand the plot. This was a slow-moving movie, the tension building slowly with no action scenes, the viewer more interested in watching Hoffman disintegrate both as Gunther Bachman as well as Hoffman himself. I don’t know whether to recommend this film or to say stay away from it.

If you’re interested in watching a great actor do his great thing, then go see it. If you’re looking for a fun way to spend two hours in a theatre, pass this one by.