What made the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman such a skilled
actor is the fact that his roles weren’t so much performances as portraits of
human behavior. Think about it: there really isn’t a single defining scene or
one specific monologue that stands out in even his best roles. That’s because he
always mastered the little things about his characters: their habits and
behaviors, their subtle quirks, the way they interact with people. An actor
might normally convince the audience through dynamic action and delivery. Hoffman
could simply occupy the scene in character, and there was never a shred of
disbelief (and he could often take over a scene even if he shared it with a much
broader performer).
His approach made his characters seem like real people instead of fictional creations, much easier to believe and more compelling to follow through a narrative. Such made him the perfect fit for the protagonist of A Most Wanted Man, which is less a thriller than a portrait of 21st Century espionage.
The man of the title refers to a Chechen refugee seeking asylum in Hamburg (Grigoriy Dobrygin), who also happens to be the heir to a fortune. A fortune which, veteran German intelligence agent Günther Bachmann (Hoffman) thinks, might be attractive to jihadist financers. Unbeknownst to the sickly immigrant, Bachmann seeks to use him as bait to trap an alleged terrorist supplier, which means gaining the cooperation of a banker (Willem Dafoe) and a civil rights lawyer (Rachel McAdams), as well as German higher-ups and an American agent (Robin Wright) who prefer to deal with things less delicately.
The film has the expected authenticity of being based on a novel by literary spy master John le Carré. There are no explosions or shootouts, or even scenes that start pumping viewers’ adrenaline. In fact, there’s not even really a mystery to the plot. It’s instead the mundane side of the spy game, the unglamorous grunt work of it. But it’s an arresting look at how agencies operate. And having Hoffman be our guide through the tangled process makes it seem realer, not some disconnected piece of entertainment like Bourne or Bond.
Everyone else is solid in this film (lackluster accents from the non-German cast aside), but it’s Hoffman’s show without a doubt. Driven but understated, he gives us a man to whom the regular nature of spying—gathering intelligence discreetly, convincing (manipulating) citizens to become allies—is simply routine. It’s his job, and while he still does it well (masterfully, actually, as convincing as the real thing), to him it’s almost monotonous. But while his sentiment is gone, he at least maintains some sort of morality. He tries to earn trust and keep his word when he can…only for the picture to remind us just how hard that can be amidst agent egos and agency pressure and bureaucracy.
It is a little melancholy knowing that you’re watching one of Hoffman’s last performances. But it’s more respectful to him, I think, to judge the work on its merits alone, not because it happened to turn out this way. Besides, with his talent, the man didn’t need such pity, and neither does the movie.
His approach made his characters seem like real people instead of fictional creations, much easier to believe and more compelling to follow through a narrative. Such made him the perfect fit for the protagonist of A Most Wanted Man, which is less a thriller than a portrait of 21st Century espionage.
The man of the title refers to a Chechen refugee seeking asylum in Hamburg (Grigoriy Dobrygin), who also happens to be the heir to a fortune. A fortune which, veteran German intelligence agent Günther Bachmann (Hoffman) thinks, might be attractive to jihadist financers. Unbeknownst to the sickly immigrant, Bachmann seeks to use him as bait to trap an alleged terrorist supplier, which means gaining the cooperation of a banker (Willem Dafoe) and a civil rights lawyer (Rachel McAdams), as well as German higher-ups and an American agent (Robin Wright) who prefer to deal with things less delicately.
The film has the expected authenticity of being based on a novel by literary spy master John le Carré. There are no explosions or shootouts, or even scenes that start pumping viewers’ adrenaline. In fact, there’s not even really a mystery to the plot. It’s instead the mundane side of the spy game, the unglamorous grunt work of it. But it’s an arresting look at how agencies operate. And having Hoffman be our guide through the tangled process makes it seem realer, not some disconnected piece of entertainment like Bourne or Bond.
Everyone else is solid in this film (lackluster accents from the non-German cast aside), but it’s Hoffman’s show without a doubt. Driven but understated, he gives us a man to whom the regular nature of spying—gathering intelligence discreetly, convincing (manipulating) citizens to become allies—is simply routine. It’s his job, and while he still does it well (masterfully, actually, as convincing as the real thing), to him it’s almost monotonous. But while his sentiment is gone, he at least maintains some sort of morality. He tries to earn trust and keep his word when he can…only for the picture to remind us just how hard that can be amidst agent egos and agency pressure and bureaucracy.
It is a little melancholy knowing that you’re watching one of Hoffman’s last performances. But it’s more respectful to him, I think, to judge the work on its merits alone, not because it happened to turn out this way. Besides, with his talent, the man didn’t need such pity, and neither does the movie.
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