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A Most Wanted Man Movie Review

A Most Wanted Man is a 2014 spy thriller film directed by Anton Corbijn and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman. It’s a very dull movie.

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“It’s just an ordinary pen.

Looks like a pen,

writes like a pen,

and listens like a pen“

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Issa Karpov, a Muslim refugee from Chechnya, illegally enters Hamburg, Germany, to get a new start in life. However, he faces several challenges when he is suspected of being a dangerous terrorist. This movie was based on the novel by John le Carre, a famous espionage author. And that is my main issue with this movie – whenever they made a film out of this author’s works, it simply did not out turn out well.

His works are not fit for the cinematic medium. They aren’t thrilling enough for a film and this movie itself ended up being rather slow in pace, uninvolving and at times frankly very tedious to watch. It lacked the energy that is necessary for thrillers to have.

This was one of the last roles of Philip Seymour Hoffman before his untimely death and he was very good in the complicated role of Gunther. His complex character and strong performance elevated what otherwise was a very uninteresting and flawed script. Others did not get much to do unfortunately with Willem Dafoe being shamelessly sidelined. Rachel McAdams was the best of the supporting players in yet another strong turn for this underrated performer.

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A Most Wanted Man lacked the sophistication to tackle its complex geopolitics. The dialogue is quite good, but nowhere near as smart as it should have been. The movie is confidently directed, acted, shot and edited, but its sluggish pacing prevented it from ever becoming engaging in the slightest. It’s a film that has nothing to say about anything, which was its main hurdle that it never overcame.