It’s hard not to wonder how throughout his career Philip Seymour Hoffman’s gearing up for roles like John le Carre’s Gunther Bachmann may have fed his demons. In his last starring role before his untimely death from a drug overdose earlier this year, Hoffman’s character, a German intelligence agent specializing in defusing potential terrorist operations, takes some getting used to. The brooding, heavy drinking, chain-smoking operative speaks softly and carries a big reputation. Yielding a German accent that seems otherworldly at first, he seems to be in a constant battle of fighting himself before he tackles the everyday task of neutralizing the civilized world’s most dangerous enemies.
Hoffman’s Bachmann immediately strikes one as a man who operates quite removed from the status quo in a world that we initially assume rewards outside the box strategies and procedures. CIA agent Robin Wright (almost unrecognizable in jet dark hair) knows Bachmann as a man who despite a troubled past, is extremely effective at what he does. Yet, this is a spy world that is increasingly dependent on cooperation between various geopolitical international agencies. These very agencies view Bachmann’s penchant to act solo and independent of such constraints as his deficiency….
…The viewer knows otherwise. As we watch Hoffmann in action his method of not sharing his plans and information makes perfect sense. In Hamburg 2008 the stakes couldn’t be higher. A city with the black eye of unwittingly having harbored 9/11 terrorists while they planned their attack, is obsessed with history not repeating itself. Bachmann epitomizes the wisdom of keeping a cool head amidst the frenzy. It’s beautiful to watch him in meetings with the other spies. Always the least excitable guy in the room, he nonetheless commands the most gravitas.
Le Carre fare is often cited for being cool, distant, more cerebral than his spy novelist counterparts. True, true, and true. Yet I view his unrattled intellectual approach, when pulled off as nicely as it is in A Most Wanted Man, as ultimately preferable to more showy, razzle dazzle approaches to the genre. As for the sizable minority of observers who have viewed this film as “too slow?” Even if you were to find that to be true (I certainly didn’t), this movie is worth your time simply due to an unforeseen ending that is one of the most absolutely sizzling finales in recent memory.