A Most Wanted Man (2014)
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Critics Consensus: Smart, subtle, and steadily absorbing, A Most Wanted Man proves once again that John le Carre books make for sharp, thoughtful thrillers.
Critics Consensus: Smart, subtle, and steadily absorbing, A Most Wanted Man proves once again that John le Carre books make for sharp, thoughtful thrillers.
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When a half-Chechen, half-Russian, brutally tortured immigrant turns up in Hamburg's Islamic community, laying claim to his father's ill-gotten fortune, both German and US security agencies take a close interest: as the clock ticks down and the stakes rise, the race is on to establish this most wanted man's true identity - oppressed victim or destruction-bent extremist? (c) Roadside Attractions- Rating:
- R (for language)
- Genre:
- Mystery & Suspense , Drama
- Directed By:
- Anton Corbijn
- Written By:
- Andrew Bovell
- In Theaters:
- Jul 25, 2014 Limited
- On DVD:
- Nov 4, 2014
- US Box Office:
- $17.2M
Cast
-
Philip Seymour Hoffm...
as Gunter Bachmann -
Rachel McAdams
as Annabel Richter -
Grigoriy Dobrygin
as Issa Karpov -
Willem Dafoe
as Tommy Brue -
Robin Wright
as Martha Sullivan -
Homayoun Ershadi
as Abdullah
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Critic Reviews for A Most Wanted Man
All Critics (143) | Top Critics (41) | Fresh (130) | Rotten (13)
It was shot in dark, lurid, vital Hamburg; Hoffman is the star; and I was completely held.
Given the deadly stakes, this should be gripping, but the film gets sucked into academic plot details, trudging through each rendezvous and stakeout.
The puzzle-like premise of A Most Wanted Man is a fabrication, but you cannot escape the fascination of Hoffman waiting for despair to be confirmed.
[Hoffman] scales his performance to Olympian heights, yet he elevates all his collaborators, too.
Hoffman, bloated and flushed, does not look well in this film. But he is such a consummate actor that whatever infirmities he may have been fighting become a part of his performance.
With his sharp instincts and exhausted wisdom, the character of Gunther offers us a bittersweet reminder of Hoffman's gifts in what is his last completed film.
Doesn't do too much wrong, yet struggles with the weight of expectation.
Um thriller de espionagem feito por e para adultos.
Hoffman's performance is filled with exasperation at a world that refuses to see things the way he does, and he gives profound voice to this commonality amongst us all.
Superbly plays out as a backstreet atmospheric subtle topical cat-and-mouse espionage game.
Photographer-turned-filmmaker Anton Corbijn continues to show striking maturity with only his third movie (after Control and The American). Based on the John Le Carre novel, this thriller avoids cliches to become a brilliantly tense spy drama.
The air of paranoid mistrust rings true, evoked most eloquently by Hoffman's world-weary face, which speaks a universal language.
A Most Wanted Man's a fine swan song for an actor who could do more with a look and exasperated outburst that many of his contemporaries.
Moody intrigue is the tone of this slow burning espionage thriller from John Le Carre in which Phillip Seymour Hoffman's solid presence as a scotch-drinking, chain-smoking, crumpled German operative leaves an indelible mark.
There is no real sense of urgency here. Anton Corbijn's chilly, detached directorial style doesn't help.
The finale, when [Philip Seymour Hoffman] reacts to everything that has gone before, is the year's most remarkably cinematic moment.
A Most Wanted Man is Hoffman's film. He doesn't just dominate the picture; he wears it like a scruffy but well-fitted suit. It's an honourable last bow.
Anton Corbijn's new thriller is perhaps the best so far to tackle the War on Terror, thanks to an ingeniously twisty, and deeply cynical, storyline plus a towering performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman ...
As a mood-piece it has lovely spells.
Watching the late Philip Seymour Hoffman as a drained, despairing spymaster in A Most Wanted Man, it's hard not to find the shadow of his tragically early death hanging over his character.
Everyone becomes a pawn in a much larger game as this muted, low-key thriller weaves its tangled web.
For all its chilled intelligence and topical ambition this is a bloodless adaptation, but worth seeing for Hoffman's deft and ghostly presence.
A thorny, welcome reminder of the mainstream media's short-term memory regarding the abduction, extradition and torture of innocent Muslims under the Bush administration and beyond.
Adrenalin junkies may have to look elsewhere but this dark, wintry slice of post 7/11 espionage packs its own punch in admirably singular style
Corbijn may tend to favour vague, vaporous stylings, but Hoffman brings focus that snaps the film out of somnabulism.
Audience Reviews for A Most Wanted Man
Hoffman delivers a most perfect, underactedly visceral performance in his last completed movie, this suspenseful espionage thriller that grabs us and keeps us always guessing, up until it reaches a suffocatingly tense climax and surprises us with a spectacular ending.
MoreSuper Reviewer
When you are in the midst of it, A Most Wanted Man may feel slow and underwhelming. You may find yourself questioning where is it all going? Stay with it. This a film that needs to be watched completely to appreciate. The different moving pieces come together to form a remarkable film experience. It's intelligent, timely, and features another great performance from Philip Seymour Hoffman as well as a delightful Robin Wright. It's a patient watch. But worth it in the end. You won't want to miss a single word or movement.
MoreSuper Reviewer
There are no good guys in A Most Wanted Man. There are decent people, yes, but they're caught up in a maze of moral ambiguities that can compromise their ethics. It's a dreary but well acted critique concerning a global military campaign in a post 9/11 world. The saga is highlighted by a plethora of memorable characters beautifully rendered with studious care as layered personalities. Like a chess game you never know what one person's next move will be. The sympathetic becomes insensitive, the heartless becomes merciful. Everything comes to head when the rival spies of Germany, England and America converge in a climax that literally involves a man initialing papers at a desk. Of course the issue being addressed is deeper than that, but like most John le Carré stories, the narrative remains emotionally cold and the milieu is bleak. It succeeds despite an overworked set up that somewhat wanes in the middle. For a movie that runs over two hours, not a whole lot happens to be quite honest. At times it's an indictment of bureaucratic incompetence. Nevertheless this carefully modulated character study ultimately ends on a powerful note.
fastfilmreviews.com
Super Reviewer
Author John le Carré is best known for writing espionage novels (TINKER TAILOR SOLDIER SPY, THE LITTLE DRUMMER GIRL, THE CONSTANT GARDENER) which, unlike the flashy Ian Fleming Bond books, are steeped in the actual mundanity of spying. A MOST WANTED MAN, directed by Anton Corbjin (THE AMERICAN) and adapted by Andrew Bovell (LANTANA), continues in this tradition and features the last completed film role by Philip Seymour Hoffman.
Set in Hamburg, Hoffman plays Gunter Bachmann, a perpetually drinking/smoking anti-terrorist group leader who has set his sights on a Chechen/Russian man who washes ashore and may have ties to Islamist terrorist activities. Learning quickly that there are bigger fish to fry, Bachmann slowly and steadily begins to delve deeper into the larger plot. Of course, this isn't enough to hang a movie on, so complications come by way of a slew of other characters with their own counterproductive agendas. Enter Robin Wright as a CIA Operative, Rachel McAdams as a well-meaning but possibly misguided attorney, Willem Dafoe as a banker with access to another level in this puzzle, and Rainer Bock, an intelligence head who would rather arrest the small fry first and ask questions later.
All of this sounds like a perfectly acceptable thriller on paper, but in execution, I must say I was a little bored by the whole affair. One can examine true minutiae and remain exciting (ALL THE PRESIDENT'S MEN is a prime example), but here, it just feels exhausted. Knowing what we know now, it's impossible not to notice that Hoffman appears sluggish and only truly comes alive in the final moments. Whatever his personal struggles and demons were, they set the tone with a generally listless vibe. That's not to say it's a bad performance, because he's never less than interesting. I believed the way, for example, he leads his team in looking closer at surveillance footage. It's very off-handed instead of imbued with tightly-clenched intensity by way of Jack Bauer on 24. In his final scene, Hoffman final explodes, and it's a magnificent release. The last shot is beautifully subtle and a fitting way to send off (not counting the upcoming HUNGER GAMES movie, of which he did not complete) one of our most treasured actors.
All told, this is a very professionally made film, and everyone delivers engaged, interesting performances, but in its admittedly admirable quest to shine a light on the realities of the genre, they forgot to add a dash of spice.
Super Reviewer
A Most Wanted Man Quotes
- Annabel Richter:
- Not only is this man wanted, I would dare to say that he is the most wanted.
- Martha Sullivan:
- I don't care who he is ... he is the most wanted man!!!
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