A Most Wanted Man Reviews

Ever since I saw 'Control', I got intrigued by Anton Corbijn's work so I was really eager to check this 3rd directing effort. Even though it was another spy feature like 'The American' was, it was something much more ambitious, easily his most ambitious movie so far but I'm afraid it only partially succeeded. Like most John Le Carré's spy thrillers, I really enjoyed the realistic approach and the bleak mood, however, I thought it was sometimes seriously murky, even more than in 'Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy'. Above all, I had a hard time to understand the motivations of most of the characters. For example, why did Issa Karpov come to Hamburg? Apparently, to get his inheritance through a rather cumbersome process but, when he finally manages to get his hands on it, he says he doesn't want it anymore. In my opinion, it was the most difficult character to understand. Indeed, he was also supposed to be a dangerous jihadist, the main reason why they were following him, but there wasn't one single moment in the whole movie that he seemed to be a threat to anyone. And then why did everyone keep betraying each other? I mean, at some point, you get to see Gunther giving a speech to Jamal but it was hardly convincing and, for the other characters, especially Annabel Richter, you didn't get any explanation at all. Finally, the last thing that bothered me was the fact, even though the action was set in Germany, with mostly some German characters, the main characters were played by some American actors and everybody spoke in English with some distracting supposedly German accents. To conclude, I think I might have been slightly generous with my rating here but, in spite of its flaws, I really liked the mood and I still think it is worth a look, especially if you like the genre.