A Most Wanted Man (2014) and a final farewell to Philip Seymour Hoffman (part 2)

“It takes a minnow to catch a barracuda, a barracuda to catch a shark”

“A Most Wanted Man” (2014) Directed by Anton Corbijn. Picture courtesy of and with thanks to www.nytimes.com

“In 2001 Mohammad Atta conceived and planned the 9–11 attacks from the port city of Hamburg, Germany”

“Intelligence failures and the interdepartmental rivalries allowed him and his team to prepare for the attacks without discovery or interference”

“Today, Hamburg remains a city on high alert, the focus of both German and international intelligence services, determined never to repeat the mistakes of 2001”

From this opening crawl, a yellow/green hue settles over the film (and a continuing colour theme is set) as we focus on a river or canal side wall as dirty water begins to rush in a wave and quickly, a man, soaked to the skin from the river or canal clambers out of the water, collapses on the nearby grass, and rushes for cover behind row upon row of disused and discarded cars in a portside harbour late at night. From here we cut to a close-up of whiskey being poured into a glass before an over the shoulder shot shows a still unseen man smoking whilst thumbing through various photos. The camera now moves to a full on shot of “Günther Bachmann” (Philip Seymour Hoffman) amid the continuing colour scheme of a dirty yellow/green as his mobile telephone begins to ring and a caller immediately stating “I picked him up from the airport this afternoon”. Quietly and coldly, Günther states what must be done next in almost the form of a question as well as what he needs from his caller and, importantly, that he’s doing the right thing. The caller immediately hangs up as director Anton Corbijn returns to the earlier angle over Günther’s shoulder and a man poring over a vast selection of photos, cigarette in hand, and a nearby ashtray full to the brim of discarded cigarette butts.

Very early morning now and we see the man from the earliest frames of the film now climbing out of a disused and condemned car after clearly sleeping here overnight. Looking around to ensure he hasn’t been seen or spotted, the man now inches his way through a vast array of tightly parked cars before we find him praying at the water’s edge of a river or canal and quickly, an early morning walk through the streets of Hamburg and across a bridge set against the rising of an early morning sun and brilliantly captured by Corbijn’s cinematographer, Benoît Delhomme. We now return to the yellow and green coloured hue of the film and Günther (resplendent in a similarly dirty yellow coloured jacket) in the audience of an Islamic charity fund raising event as the speaker keenly reiterates “Violence against the innocent is not the way of Allah”. It’s at this point that Günther slowly exits the auditorium and now framed with his back to the participants now leaving the building, he would appear to be disinterested in those leaving as he smokes and looks the other way. With a cigarette forever in his hand or mouth, we now find Günther driving away from the auditorium and quickly into the nerve centre of his anti-terrorist, intelligence gathering team, namely “Max” (Daniel Brühl), “Irna” (Nina Hoss), “Niki” (Vicky Krieps), “Karl” (Franz Hartwig) and “Rasheed” (Kostja Ullmann). Max has a lead on the man seen at the beginning of the film, namely “Issa Karpov” (Grigoriy Dobrygin) a Chechnyan national and violent suspected terrorist and “escaped militant jihadist”. As the team view security footage, Günther instructs Karl and Rasheed to visit every mosque in the area in search of information, Niki every railway station, and everyone to be vigilant in their search for the “scrawny bastard” who Issa passes a note to as seen on the earlier security footage. Walking with Irna into his messy and cluttered (and yellow/green coloured) office, there is barely any wall space left in Günther’s tiny world, with every available inch seemingly covered in photos, ongoing intelligence and notes. He muses aloud that their chief suspect has a Jewish first name, a Russian sounding surname and “a son of nobody”. Irna retorts that Issa is an Islamic name for Jesus and as he leaves his office, Günther responds “Maybe he’s the son of God and come to save us” and, with a huge smile, “save me”.

We cut to a large gathering of men praying and as the seemingly youngest of the group leaves the earliest, we see Günther walking slowly on the other side of the street. The young man enters a cafe and places a pack of cigarettes on the counter as Günther walks in behind him ordering a black coffee and when served his takeaway beverage, he scoops up the pack of cigarettes as he leaves the cafe. Now in his parked car outside a brightly lit sex cinema, Günther empties the packet of cigarettes until he finds a small SD card and quickly inserts this into his laptop. As an array of files, travel receipts and photos fill his screen his mobile telephone rings with Irna confirming they have located where the “scrawny bastard” can be found. Thanking Irna and musing with her on a paper trail in a digital world, Günther closes his laptop and quickly (and again within the yellow and green colour hue of the film) he’s seen entering a bar and with Max and Niki keeping watch from the corner of the bar, Max nods in the direction of his prey, the scrawny bastard better known as “The Admiral” (Martin Wuttke). Seeming a little drunk, The Admiral confirms openly that Issa did pass him a note and a request for details on a man, a “banker”, but is reluctant to pass any further information until Günther is forthcoming with some cash. Trapping a small bundle of Euros beneath his beer bottle, The Admiral confirms the full name of the banker Issa is keen to meet.

Forever hooded, we return to Issa beneath an underpass joining a long queue of similarly dishevelled looking vagrants. Unaware he’s been spotted, Günther receives the good news in his office as he requests their informant to keep watch, follow him and “keep him walking” as we quickly find Günther now smoking on a first floor balcony of a tower block before spotting the arrival of fellow spy and intelligence asset “Dieter Mohr” (Rainer Bock). He discards his cigarette before without introduction or pleasantries he requests time to follow Issa, see where he goes, who he interacts with and to trail his footprint wherever he goes. Mohr gives him a cold, tacit approval to do so and, for now, the case is in hands. “Thank Christ it’s not in your hands” Günther replies equally coldly, “because if it was, you’d fuck it up”. Antagonised now, Mohr demands their off book agreement now be formally made in writing and Günther fully responsible should a bomb explode in Hamburg and blood run in the streets. “Have you ever seen blood on the streets?” Günther responds angrily, before calling Mohr a “clown” and disappearing.

We cut to Issa watching an elderly lady through iron railings, struggling with several bags of heavy shopping. He approaches her silently, but quickly, from behind…

Directed by Anton Corbijn (Control, The American and Life) the Dutch born filmmaker will forever be associated in my musical eyes and ears as the video director for U2 and Depeche Mode in the 1980’s and early 1990’s (among many others in his more contemporary years) but that is not to decry his nine feature length film releases as director or the four highly recommended films listed in this paragraph and especially so A Most Wanted Man. For this is a gem of a film and rather more fitting as Philip Seymour Hoffman’s final film before his incredibly sad and early death than God’s Pocket released in the same year of 2014. Dishevelled and unkempt in his yellow coat amid the film’s constant yellow, green hue, hunched over, forever smoking and drinking, Philip’s final performance has more than an echo through to the present day and Gary Oldman’s role in the fantastic Slow Horses TV series, but where that comparison ends with a modern day espionage thriller full to the brim of exciting chase scenes and bullets, not a shot is fired here in a slow burning, information gathering game of cat and mouse, bluff and counter bluff, deceit and betrayal, and the double crossing of a man playing a dangerous game the honourable way in a den full of Establishment thieves. World weary, downbeat even, Philip embodies his Günther character as a supportive man with everything (almost) under his control and direction despite being besieged on all sides of the East/West divide eager for immediate headlines rather than the longer game he’s playing, and in the hands of Anton Corbijn, A Most Wanted Man runs The American close in my affections for his finest film to date, and is a fitting cinematic finale for a man of acting greatness and a much missed screen presence.

Forever in my heart, Philip Seymour Hoffman.

(23rd July 1967–2nd February 2014)

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Thanks for reading. I hope this message in a bottle in The Matrix finds you well, prospering, and the right way up in an upside down world.

Whilst you’re here I may as well brag about the release of my trilogy of recently self-published books. Beautiful covers eh! As the title(s) would suggest, this is my life at the movies or at least from 1980 to 2024, and in volume 1 you’ll find 80 spoiler free appraisals of movies from debut filmmakers, 91 of the very best films appraised with love and absent of spoilers from 1990–2024 in volume 2, and in volume 3 you’ll find career “specials” on Paul Thomas Anderson and Quentin Tarantino together with the very best of the rest and another 87 spoiler free film reviews from 2001–2024.

All available in hardback and paperback and here are some handy links:

(Author’s Collection)

"A Life at the Movies Vol.1" - link to Amazon

"A Life at the Movies Vol.2" - link to Amazon

"A Life at the Movies Vol.3" - link to Amazon

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