A Most Wanted Man - 3 smiles

Phillip Seymour Hoffman is the star of “A Most Wanted Man,” a movie adaptation of John le Carré’s novel, but the title doesn’t refer to him. Hoffman is Gunther Bachmann, a German spymaster, who, after a fatal screw-up in Beirut, has been demoted to his nation’s Hamburg station. There’s plenty of suspense, but as in most Le Carré stories, the action is more internal than external. As directed by Anton Corgijn, the story unfolds slowly. A bearded young Chechen, Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin), is a suspected Islamic militant, and Bachmann needs to track who he meets, where he goes. The al-Qaeda plotters behind 9/11 worked, undetected, in Hamburg more than a decade prior to the attack and Bachmann is determined to see that no new terrorist cell operates on his watch. Bachmann’s team follows Karpov, who eventually leads them to a Turkish woman and her son and to a lawyer, Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), who works for a human rights group whose mission is to find safe haven for refugees. Another character Bachmann is watching is Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi), a Muslim who professes peace and tolerance, but may be funneling some of his charity funds to terrorist groups. It is Abdullah that American ‘consultant’ Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) is more interested in.

Unfortunately, the movie feels like a superficial update of le Carré’s cold war stories. Russians are replaced by modern-day terrorists, but the story offers no insight into a new enemy. The cat-and-mouse games, while entertaining, feel familiar. And while the supporting cast is stellar, this is Hoffman’s movie, his last major role, and he dominates as, ironically, a man who has lost his dominance. Speaking in delicate, German-tinged English and throwing his weight around, Hoffman is a pleasure to watch. “A Most Wanted Man” tells a complex story that attentive audiences might want to see a second time; the more casual viewers will likely leave the theater in mild befuddlement. 8/3/14