A Chechen Muslim illegally immigrates to Hamburg, where he gets caught in the international war on terror.
A multi-level chess game.
Sadly this is one of Hoffman’s final performances. It’s also one of his finest.
An old-school spy thriller, Corbijn’s taut le Carré riff does its genre proud. Hoffman commands every second.
For all its chilled intelligence and topical ambition this is a bloodless adaptation, but worth seeing for Hoffman’s deft and ghostly presence.
Wait, what's at stake again?
Everyone becomes a pawn in a much larger game as this muted, low-key thriller weaves its tangled web.
It is a commanding performance from Hoffman, and an overwhelmingly satisfying note for this actor to end on.
The film is quietly intriguing but the emotional ante is low.
Philip Seymour Hoffman perfectly inhabits his character as an exhausted spymaster in John le Carré's unnervingly topical tale.
The air of paranoid mistrust rings true, evoked most eloquently by Hoffman’s world-weary face, which speaks a universal language.
General release. Check local listings for show times.
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