A Most Wanted Man (2014)

A MOST WANTED MAN  (2014)  ¢ ¢ ¢ 1/2
    D: Anton Corbijn
    Philip Seymour Hoffman, Willem Dafoe, Robin Wright,
    Rachel McAdams, Grigoriy Dobrygin, Nina Hoss
Spooks in Hamburg, with Philip Seymour Hoffman as a cagy German op (who's also a disheveled, chain-smoking alcoholic) out to turn a Chechen asylum-seeker and crack the financial network behind a terrorist ring. It's good, dirty-game spy stuff, based on a novel by John le Carré, but what stands out are all the little acting set pieces, scenes that last maybe a minute or two, in which Hoffman, between prodigious hits of nicotine, squares off with the rest of the cast. It was Hoffman's last starring role, and it's the kind of performance that makes you realize, again, that the accolades piling up after his death weren't just hyperbole. He really was that good, and the movie ends on a note that's eerie in its throwaway finality. The actor simply walks away, out of the frame and off the screen, and for once the camera doesn't follow. The movie's over. And Hoffman's gone.