A Most Wanted Man.

One of Philip Seymour Hoffman's last roles as Gunther Backmann

This adaptation by Andrew Bovell of a John le Carre’s 2008 post 9/11 novel of the same name is one of Philip Seymour’s Hoffman’s last films and just goes to prove how much we will miss this great actor. Hoffman plays Gunter Bachmann the hard drinking, heavy smoking head of a German anti terrorist team based in Hamburg which is charged with developing sources within the Islamic community to assist with counter intelligence work. Tension’s run high after the World Trade Centre attack so when the half Chechen, half Russian 26 year old Issa Karpov turns up at Hamburg airport looking a little worse for wear not only is Bachmann interested in the young man but also is the head of Hamburg intelligence Dieter Mohr (Rainer Bock) and the CIA in the form of Agent Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright).  Karpov claims to be in Germany to collect an inheritance worth tens of millions of euro’s left to him by his father and kept in a safe deposit box under the watchful eye of the Head of Bank Tommy Brue (Willem Dafoe). The only person that seems to believe Karpov is the human rights lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams).

Annabel Richter with Issa Karpov.

A Most wanted Man (2013) is a contemporary tale of intrigue one in which the modern intelligence agencies are shown to be completely paranoid about any one that even slightly resembles what they assume to be Jihadist and therefore by default a terrorist.  This was my final film of the 2014 EIFF and I was tired and found the film a little to long so I will not be too judgemental and just comment that the acting was as you would expect from such a good cast very good and Anton Corbijn’s (Control 2007, The American 2010) direction and Benoit Delhomme (Lawless 2012) cinematography brought the story to life. A movie I'd like to see again.