 | Anton Corbijn’s espionage film about people caught up in the international war on terror is crisp, glassy surface, a deadpan thriller full of moral ambiguities and questionable alliances. |
Anton Corbijn’s espionage film about people caught up in the international war on terror is crisp, glassy surface, a deadpan thriller full of moral ambiguities and questionable alliances. This adaptation of John le Carré’s post-9/11 political passion play about good, evil and the sins committed in the name of national security has an inescapable melancholy over the presence of Philip Seymour Hoffman. Hoffman is excellent as Günther Bachmann – a German intelligence officer and a man of sorrows driven by his uncompromising belief in himself.
There is a strong supporting cast with clever performances by Daniel Bruhl, Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams and especially Robin Wright worthy of note. The story seems both topical and redolent of an earlier espionage age and is a good marriage of Le Carré’s intricate web weaving and Mr. Corbijn’s complementary visual style. Corbin, whose previous work of ‘Control’ and ‘The American’ shows him to be a director of stylish and understated work.
Previous adaptations ‘The Constant Gardner’, ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ have proved that John Le Carré does not glamorise the world of intelligence the way that the Bourne or James Bond franchises have and Anton Corbijn ensures he keeps within that. Le Carré worked for British intelligence's MI5 & MI6 during the 1950s and 1960s and worked in both Berlin and Hamburg so his work seems authentic and assured. The subtle cat-and-mouse espionage games and relative degrees of political and personal distortion all play out with great tension. This is a good psychological story, well made…
There is a strong supporting cast with clever performances by Daniel Bruhl, Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams and especially Robin Wright worthy of note. The story seems both topical and redolent of an earlier espionage age and is a good marriage of Le Carré’s intricate web weaving and Mr. Corbijn’s complementary visual style. Corbin, whose previous work of ‘Control’ and ‘The American’ shows him to be a director of stylish and understated work.
Previous adaptations ‘The Constant Gardner’, ‘Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy’ have proved that John Le Carré does not glamorise the world of intelligence the way that the Bourne or James Bond franchises have and Anton Corbijn ensures he keeps within that. Le Carré worked for British intelligence's MI5 & MI6 during the 1950s and 1960s and worked in both Berlin and Hamburg so his work seems authentic and assured. The subtle cat-and-mouse espionage games and relative degrees of political and personal distortion all play out with great tension. This is a good psychological story, well made…