Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last movie role is out. Apparently he finished filming this movie a couple weeks before his death. A suspense and espionage thriller, authored by John Le Carre, the tension in this film is thick enough to cut with a knife. Every moment seems like something awful is about to happen, in spite of the fact that there is very little action at all. It’s the story of Essa, a Chechen muslim, a traumatized torture victim, and the son of a Russian general/gangster who has left him a cryptic will that will lead to a huge amount of money. Essa, however, is a penniless, nearly speechless, illegal immigrant in Hamburg, Germany, a city that seems to be overflowing with immigrants, tension, grit and graffiti.
Hoffman is a German investigator who is following Issa, thinking that he may be innocent or that he might be connected to terrorists. Appearing in the scene is Annabel, an idealistic lawyer (Rachel McAdams), who wants to advocate for Issa and to convince authorities that he should be allowed to stay. One of the main precepts of a movie like this is that everybody lies, almost all of the time. Trust no one, verify and fact-check everything, check your sources and use your instincts. Gunther (Seymour’s character) is inclined to trust Issa, but wants to find out where his money leads. Issa is horrified about how his father worked and wants to donate all of the blood-stained money to righteous Islamic charities and that brings him to the attention of a well-known cleric. Is the cleric for real, is he a front for something else, is Issa what he claims to be and is the lawyer really working FOR Issa or using him? Things get even more complicated because another faction of German intelligence and “The Americans” (personified by Robin Wright) both want to make Issa disappear into some sort of gulag or haul him off to Gitmo. Being spoiler-averse, I’m not going to say how this resolves
I will say that, if you like tense potboilers, this movie is excellent. Seymour, aside from looking moribund, creates an excellent character, as does the rest of the excellent cast. The movie is methodical, sometimes hard to follow, but also believable, and, did I say it, tense. If you like spy dramas, this is definitely a movie to see.
https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=OUyYBrlF_W8
