Hammerman Ikon

Hammerman Ikon Film Guide

A Most Wanted Man
2014
**
Director: Anton Corbijn
Cast: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Homayoun Ershadi, Nina Hoss, Daniel Brühl

While the German authorities are eager to detain a suspected Chechen terrorist who has just arrived in Hamburg, covert intelligence agent Günther Bachmann wants to use the man to catch a bigger fish. Like the criminally overrated Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, this is another dull and slow-paced espionage drama based on a John le Carré novel. The story, which is predictably cynical and disappointingly uneventful, drags itself slowly towards its inevitable conclusion. Bachmann is a brooding, disillusioned, hard smoking, and heavy drinking spy who attempts to make amends for past mistakes. In other words, he is a walking talking cliché. Philip Seymour Hoffman plays him with a mumbly German accent in one of his final and least memorable performances.