Last year Philip Seymour Hoffman died and we lost a great screen presence and formidable actor. One of his final roles was in A Most Wanted Man, an adaptation of a fairly recent John Le Carré novel. While it was well reviewed at the time of its release it didn't really find an audience and seemed to have quickly been forgotten. So I sat down to figure out whether people should have paid more attention or whether they were right in ignoring it.
The film is set in Hamburg, Germany and is concerned with an illegal immigrant from Chechnya named Karpov. Due to some potential terrorist threat he becomes of interest to an off-the-books German spy circle led by Gunther Bachmann, who is played by Hoffman. While Bachmann tries to get through Karpov to the big baddies in terrorism, he also has to fend off his superiors and the Americans who are pushing to get Karpov taken out immediately.
This short summary makes the film sound way more dramatic than it actually is. Director Anton Corbijn gives the proceedings a somber tone and presents the plot in a very slow-moving fashion. Right from the get go it is clear that we are not dealing with an action movie, Bourne this is not. This is definitely not a problem, there have been plenty of good spy films before that have put their emphasis on brains and plot rather than guns and explosions. However, those were also way more engaging than A Most Wanted Man is.
The most glaring problem is that we are not engaged in any of the characters. We don't care about Karpov, even with the implied issue of him being a physically tortured prisoner. We don't care about Bachmann, who is a disillusioned, semi-alcoholic chain smoker, in short, a cliché that writes itself. And we also don't care about his struggle to do things his way, opposed to the people he is working for. None of the persons we see in the film emerge as much more than plot elements.
Which brings us to the plot. Once the characters are established, the storyline is pretty much by the numbers, with no surprises, every development you can see from miles ahead, which throws any sense of suspense or excitement right out the window. Never before has the spy business be so dull on screen. Which actually turns out to be exactly what the movie seems to be going for.
The film's climax is the only moment that rings true and original, a scene that carries home a very powerful (albeit fairly obvious) message. This scene, coupled with Bachmann's fights with authority, is the only redeeming element of the film. Not to give anything away, but just look at the moments between Hoffman and Robin Wright as an American official. She with black hair, black clothes, driven around in a black car, he wearing a white shirt, having white hair, even his skin is a nuance whiter than usual. Symbolism, anyone? You don't have to be a rocket scientist to understand what's going on here.
So ultimately, A Most Wanted Man is a message movie. But even a message movie cannot be excused for being a tedium to watch. There's plenty of other films out there that have something to say AND are exciting at the same time. To paraphrase what Gene Hackman had to say about Eric Rohmer movies: This is just as boring as watching paint dry.
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