Film Review: The Most Wanted Man *** 1/2
Watching A Most Wanted Man carries with it an unexpected weight to the original intention of the filmmaker; one that has grown since the passing of Philip Seymour Hoffman, making this film an almost excoriating experience, because no matter the quality of A Most Wanted Man, it will forever be known as the last fully realized performance of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Somehow that weight matches the mood and style of Corbijn’s film. Philip plays Gunther Bachmann, a German intelligence agent who carries a great deal of demons and anger with him. Hoffman infuses Bachmann with a world-weariness and dystopian attitude and does remind us all of the immense talent we have lost.
At the start, Gunther and the intelligence community are startled by the sudden arrival of Issa Karpov, a half-Chechen, half-Russian Muslim who has arrived in Hamburg to reclaim his evil father’s fortune, but no one knows for what other reason or why now. Given that this is the same community that one of the 9-11 hijackers originated from, Gunther wants to stop the German intelligence community from repeating past mistakes. However, in the governments zeal to “do the right thing”, they are rushing to arrest Issa before he can make a move. Gunther realizes that more important than apprehending Issa is turning him.
The maze of a plot is typical of a John le Carre novel and although the film is not handled as masterfully as Tinker, Tailor, Solider, Spy, the movie quietly builds the weight of a nihilistic fall. Philip masterly crafts a performance of a man who no longer believes that good can exist in the world. He is merely going through the motion of his job because he feels tremendous guilt, not only for his entire intelligence community’s failure on 9-11, but because of a personal failure in Beirut, which haunts his every action. At one point, someone asks what the intelligence community hopes to gain from their little games and Bachmann barely musters the energy to say “to make a safer world.” You know the he doesn’t believe it himself.
When Philip first speaks it in the movie it is impossible to believe his accent. No German person speaks this way. But as the film grows so too does his performance and you come to realize that Bachmann’s voice is tired and it is a struggle even to speak, explaining the accent. Much will be said most likely about how this performance demonstrated some dark demons inside Philp. I am unsure of that, but perhaps, his personal demons allowed him to play a man who lives on the edge of humanity with such conviction.
Corbijn, who made the much underrated The American, correctly choses to make the film a distant film. He never completely moves you into the action, allowing the feeling like Kurosawa’s Ran. This is how Bachmann feels about the world. Corbijn then saturates his entire film with grey. It bleeds off the screen and you feel the world lose its color and life. A Most Wanted Man is one of the bleakest films I’ve seen in sometime. It reminded me of McCarthy’s novel The Road whose post-apocalyptic landscape is certainly less populated, but described as being drained of all color, leaving only shades of grey.
The grey also brings in the moral ambiguity for each of the characters. No one in the film seems like they are certain of what they are doing and even those claiming to act for their beliefs eventually demonstrate that those beliefs are held at arms-length, just like the style of the film.
But perhaps the most depressing aspect of A Most Wanted Man occurs in the notion that no one wins. That everyone has something to lose and will lose it in pursuit of their claimed victory. In the end, however, regardless of what the film says it will be remembered… as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last fully realized performance.
