Skin game

“A Most Wanted Man”

3 stars

Rated R

121 minutes

Thriller

Starring: Grigoriy Dobrygin, Philip Seymour Hoffman, Homayoun Ershadi

Anton Corbjin’s unconventional post-9/11 spy thriller (based on John le Carré dated 2008 novel) remains an engaging experience in spite of myriad aspects that weigh it down. Notably, one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last performances — here as a German spook — arrives with the bittersweet realization that the late actor was no longer in full command of his acting skills when the film was made.

Hoffman plays Günther Bachmann, the acting head of an elite government-controlled anti-terror spy unit based in Hamburg. Hoffman’s waning German accent and distracted performance is at times painful to witness. Still, the innately gifted actor keeps it together enough to support the slow-simmering storyline around him.

The film’s lack of a clear protagonist, much less a viable antagonist, proves to be its biggest stumbling block. The screenwriter (Andrew Bovel) didn’t do a sufficient job in adapting le Carré’s book to a proper script form. Nonetheless, Anton Corbjin’s renowned experience as a still photographer — his strictly black-and-white photos of rock stars were featured prominently in New Musical Express for years — contributes greatly to sustaining suspense. Corbijn’s appropriately formal compositions and fluid camerawork evince a calculated coldness germane to the nature of spy operations to keep the audience hooked up until the film’s climactic revelation.

The modern-day narrative begins with the arrival in Hamburg of an illegal Chechen Muslim immigrant. With a scruffy beard and hooded head, the 26-year-old Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) appears from the outside to be a made-to-order terrorist. Add to Issa’s menacing appearance the fact that he spent the last dozen or so years imprisoned and tortured in Russian and Turkish prisons andyou have the perfect recipe for a radicalized personality ready to snap.

Ironically, it’s Issa Karpov’s possible access to his deceased father’s fortune that enables his greatest threat to the Western world. Issa’s old man was a hired assassin in thick with the head of one of Germany’s most powerful private banks. Issa has a letter from his father anda banking “instrument,” that promises to provide him with tens of millions in Euros if the bank will honor his claim. Issa wants to give the money to Muslim “charities” — code for “terrorist” organizations.

After securing lodging with a Turkish family, Issa receives some much-needed assistance from Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), a naïve attorney for a human rights organization. Annabel is out of her depth andsoon becomes co-opted by Günther Bachmann’s time-sensitive operation to cooperate with surveilling the “most wanted” man — a man she genuinely wants to protect.

“A Most Wanted Man” is a dense think piece about the scale, scope andethically dubious practices of the American government’s intelligence operations abroad — specifically in Germany. Written before Edward Snowden’s ongoing disclosures of NSA documents, the film is hamstrung by being too far behind the times. Martha Sullivan (Robyn Wright) is the high-ranking CIA spy adept at playing all the angles to get what she wants regardless of the bridges she burns. Wright’s ruthless character seems to have much in common with the two U.S. spies recently expelled from Germany for just such practices. Germany may well be asking itself, “Who needs enemies with these kinds of allies around?” CV

Cole Smithey — The Smartest Film Critic in the World — has covered every aspect of world cinema since 1997. His reviews and video essays are archived online at www.ColeSmithey.com.