A Most Wanted Man

Part of the special series IN CONTROL: THE FILMS OF ANTON CORBIJN

A MOST WANTED MAN is a gritty, multi-layered espionage thriller that explores the moral conflicts and bleak realities of modern intelligence work. At the centre is Günther Bachmann, a detached German secret service agent working in Hamburg who is trying to uncover a network of potential terrorists. His target is Issa Karpov, a mysterious fugitive with an unclear past whose true intentions are difficult to pin down and who vacillates between the roles of victim and perpetrator. Bachmann's team, including the idealistic lawyer Annabel Richter, gets caught up in a web of intrigue, deception and international power games in which no one can be trusted.

Director Anton Corbijn stages the film with sober realism and dispenses with action-packed clichés. Instead, he paints an atmospherically dense picture of betrayal and paranoia, supported by the gloomy images of Hamburg. The marvellous Philip Seymour Hoffman shines in his last major role as a grumpy investigator marked by inner conflicts who fights against bureaucracy as much as against his own resignation...

An intense drama that raises questions about guilt, justice and the ethical limits of surveillance.