Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Grigory Dobrygkin, Willem Dafoe, Rachel Mc Adams, Robin Wright, Homayour Arshadi, Nina Hoss, Daniel Bruel.
Distributor: Roadshow Films
Runtime: 122 mins. Reviewed in Jul 2014
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A first recommendation would be that this is a film version of a John Le Carre novel. The second recommendation is that it is a contemporary story of 21st-century espionage. Then there is the recommendation of the fine performance by Philip Seymour Hoffman and audience regret at his death earlier in 2014 at the age of 46. And the direction is by the celebrated Dutch photographer and video maker, Anton Corbijn, who also directed Control, the story of Ian Curtis and the band, Joy Division, and The American, with George Clooney. As well, this film has an excellent international cast. The screenplay was written by Australian Andrew Bovell.
John Le Carre’s novels have been published over a period of more than 50 years and there have been film versions over this half-century, starting in the 1960s with The Spy Who Came in from the Cold, to the George Smiley stories, to The Constant Gardener and the recent Tinker, Taylor, Soldier, Spy.
This present film might be called an intelligent film about intelligence.
The setting is Hamburger, with visits to Berlin. In Hamburg, Gunther Beckman (Philip Seymour Hoffman) is in charge of a surveillance and espionage company, an unofficial group at the disposal of the German government. The particular problem for the group is the arrival of Issa, a seeming-terrorist from Turkey. Immediately, the group goes into action, identifying the man, photographing him, a payout to a railway attendant for information…
The real target, however, is larger, a shipping company, based in Cyprus, which seems to be involved in huge amounts of money laundering for terrorist groups, allegedly managed by an Arab philanthropist in Germany, with a fine reputation but who seems to be diverted funds to the terrorists.
Two significant characters come into the action, Annabel (Rachel McAdams), daughter of a judge who is in rebellion against her father, becoming a lawyer for leftist group. She is representing Issa, the man at the centre of the surveillance. He wants to get in contact with a respectable banker (Willem Dafoe), whose father collaborated with Issa’s father and finances in the Soviet Union thirty years earlier.
It should be said that while this is an espionage film, there is practically no violent action throughout the whole film, rather the emphasis on surveillance and intelligence. There is an abduction, there are some interrogations, there is a car and taxi crash at the end, but violence is not the aim of the film.
There is a great attention to the timing and deadlines, the role of the banker and the amount of money available for Issa, the abduction of Annabel and getting her to collaborate with the surveillance group, and the same for the banker. The German authorities want Issa. Gunther’s plann to divert Issa’s money to the philanthropist and catch him, if possible, signing documents diverting the money to terrorists. The German government officials are single-minded, not particularly flexible. And into the equation comes the CIA agent, Martha, played with quiet and intense ruthlessness by Robin Wright.
The complexity of the plot is fascinating for audiences who like espionage stories. Each of the characters has their own particular interest. And the build-up to the arrest of the philanthropist is skilful – and so are the final images of the film which are not quite what we might have imagined.
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