A Most Wanted Man

Screening Dates:
Fri 17 October 6:15pm
Mon 20 October 8:45pm
Tue 21 October 6:15pm
Wed 22 October 8:50pm

Director: Anton Corbijn
Cast: Phiip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright

In director Anton Corbijn’s (Control, The American) appropriately shadowy adaptation of John Le Carré’s post-9/11 espionage thriller, Philip Seymour Hoffman plays Günther Bachmann, head of Hamburg’s secret anti-terrorist unit who co-opts Issa (Grigoriy Dobrygin), a reluctant Chechen refugee, to help catch a suspected jihad mastermind.

Unfortunately Bachmann’s painstakingly subtle approach is threatened by a CIA agent (Wright) keen to accelerate the chase and a liberal lawyer (McAdams) who is helping Issa recover a substantial inheritance apparently sitting with a shady banker (Dafoe).

With perfectly calibrated plot twists courtesy of Lantana screenwriter Andrew Bovell executed in typically understated style by Corbijn, this is a great ensemble piece with characters rather than individual actors driving the action, although Hoffman deserves credit for some heroic smoking, drinking and gruff, world-weary cunning.

★★★★★ “[A] MASTERFUL ADAPTATION” Daily Telegraph