Tuesday, February 14, 2017

The Man Behind the Gun (1953)

Director: Felix E. Feist                                      Writers: John Twist & Robert Buckner
Film Score: David Buttolph                               Cinematography: Bert Glennon
Starring: Randolph Scott, Patrice Wymore, Roy Roberts and Philip Carey

The Man Behind the Gun is definitely lesser Randolph Scott. Part of the reason is that he doesn’t play a cowboy, and the stage-bound sets don’t do him any favors either. But the real problem is a story that just isn’t that interesting. Robert Buckner had written some big-budget films for Warners in the 1940s but he only came up with the story, leaving mid-level writer John Twist to do the screenplay. Unfortunately the film really undermines Scott’s western persona, the honest cowboy who gets caught up in something ugly and has to save others or himself. Here he plays an undercover military man who is looking for trouble. And the killing he does is pretty mater of fact and comes a little to easily for comfort. When he is finally forced to reveal himself he turns into a stern taskmaster at the fort and is rather unlikable. The only thing that makes any sense is that the studio was attempting to capitalize on the success of the John Ford--John Wayne vehicle She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, in which Duke plays a cavalry officer. But the two films are light years apart. Director Felix E. Feist is not an artist, but he’s not a hack either. He spent most of his early career making short films at the studio and his later career in television. But he did make a couple of interesting films in the fifties, one the adaptation of the Curt Siodmak novel Donovan’s Brain, and the other the Kirk Douglas vehicle The Big Trees.

The film begins with Randolph Scott in San Francisco working undercover, as he gets off a boat to head south to Los Angeles. Before he does, he kills two men in the street and teams up with former soldiers Dick Wesson and Alan Hale Jr. The trip south is like a miniature version of John Ford’s Stagecoach, with senator Roy Roberts who wants all of California to be a state, rival senator Morris Ankrum who wants southern California to be a slave state, schoolmarm Patrice Wymore, villain Anthony Caruso, and Scott pretending to be a schoolmaster. When Caruso shows off his gun to everyone, Scott secretly takes out the bullets. Then Caruso tries to rob everyone aboard and Scott gets the drop on him. Once in L.A., he hands over the criminals to soldier Philip Carey, who puts them in jail. It turns out Ankrum is in control of the water rights and gouging everyone, but one night in the town’s big dance hall he’s shot dead. Scott tries to get information from the dance hall singer Lina Romay about who the man in charge of everything is, the murder of Ankrum, the illegal guns he found in the basement of the dance hall, the new owner of the water rights, but she learns that he is really an army Major and he’s forced to reveal himself. Scott believes that Carey is part of the conspiracy and at the same time he tries to woo his girl, Patrice Wymore. But the whole thing becomes more and more convoluted as the movie goes on, at the same time that Scott’s character becomes lest and less interesting.

The other major character in the film is Robert Cabal as real-life desperado Joaquin Murietta. He had come from Mexico to California in 1849, but it wasn’t long before he was killed by rangers four years later. In this film he’s a young kid working for Anthony Caruso and when Scott out foxes the villain on the stagecoach he lets Cabal go. From then on he works both sides of the fence, getting information for and giving protection to Scott. In terms of acting, no one really stands out. Roy Roberts is a familiar face in the years before he turned exclusively to television. But there are also moments when he looks a little too much like Scott and it can be confusing. Dick Wesson and Alan Hale Jr. acquit themselves well, but Philip Carey is pedestrian at best. The real find is Patrice Wymore, who is absolutely gorgeous. She shows some real grit at the end of the picture and one wishes she could have had more of an opportunity to display her talents. No one really has that chance because the cast is so big and the story so intricate that none of the actors has enough screen time to enable them to develop any anything close to character and wind up being more types than real people. Even Scott, because of the changing nature of his character, isn’t really consistent, and so the ending seems a bit forced. For fans of Randolph Scott, The Man Behind the Gun definitely has something to offer. For everybody else, there are hundreds of fifties westerns that are better than this.

Saturday, February 11, 2017

Help! (1965)

Director: Richard Lester                                   Writers: Marc Behm & Charles Wood
Film Score: Ken Thorne                                   Cinematography: David Watkin
Starring: The Beatles, Leo McKern, Eleanor Bron and Roy Kinnear

While the Beatles’ A Hard Day's Night was something of a pseudo documentary in black and white, Help! was a full-fledged motion picture in living color. Unfortunately, that was the only interesting thing about the film. Dick Lester, who had directed the earlier film, was given a bigger budget and the group wanted to spend every penny by going to Austria and the Caribbean, but where the film really fails is the screenplay. Marc Behn had been successful with the independent Cary Grant vehicle Charade two years earlier, while co-writer Charles Wood had only written for television to that point. And while Wood had a long and distinguished career in Britain, there wasn’t a lot he could do with this story. While the Beatles are the nominal stars of the film, they really don’t have a lot to do other than run around doing silly things. Everyone in the group admitted that they were stoned most of the time, and so that probably didn’t help to make them put a lot of effort into their performances. The rather thin story is simply an excuse for a series of gags of rather dubious quality and the nonsensical running around of the cast. The only part of the film that still holds up today are the music performances, and they are generally good. The one that has them goofing around in the snow is less so, but it’s easy to see why fans at the time were enamored of the film.

The film opens on a fictional far-Eastern temple, with Leo McKern about to make a human sacrifice. But he’s stopped when one of his acolytes, Eleanor Bron, sees that the victim isn’t wearing the sacrificial ring. As the worshipers begin looking for the ring it is suddenly seen on the hand of, who else but Ringo, as the opening credits begin with the Beatles singing the title song. The video is in black and white, and halfway through the reason becomes clear as darts begin to hit the drummer. McKern is watching them on film and throwing the darts, then decides to go after the ring. In London the four lads are seen going into adjoining houses, with no walls between inside. And that’s when the comedy, if it can even be called that, ensues. Lennon reads his own book on his sunken bed, Harrison has grass in his bedroom complete with a gardener, Starr has vending machines along one wall, and McCartney is seen playing a Wurlitzer organ that comes up out of the floor. All the while McKern and Bron try all kinds of convoluted ways to get the ring off of Ringo’s finger. Mercifully, the group plays another song to stop the lame attempt humor that permeates the film. While McKern and company make several attempts to chop off Ringo’s hand to get the ring, for some unknown reason Bron stops them. At the same time, scientists Roy Kinnear and Victor Spinetti are after it too. Finally the group learns that if he can’t get the ring off, he’ll have to be sacrificed, which leads to chases through the Alps and the Bahamas.

The film was generally given positive reviews at the time, and there is a certain type of British comedy film of the period that the film can be considered part of. The original version of The Italian Job is one example of this kind of comedy, which doesn’t really translate to modern audiences at all. Part of the idea for the film sends up the James Bond films, which United Artists owned, but much of the action failed to capitalize on that connection. Leo McKern does about as well as could have been done with the script he was given. Eleanor Bron, who was supposed to be the Bond girl of the film, was great to look at but her motivation was a bit muddy. Even after she had saved her sister from sacrifice she continues to rescue Ringo. And as nonsensical as McKern and his followers are, Roy Kinnear and Victor Spinetti make an already confusing plot even more incomprehensible. But then, that was probably the point. Contemporary audiences seemed to enjoy simply seeing the Fab Four in anything. And the film was highly influential, as it provided the template for the Monkees television show and their subsequent success in the U.S. Ultimately, robbing the Beatles of their true persona--the primary element that made A Hard Day's Night such a successful film in its own right--is what really nullifies whatever potential Help! had as a film. As a piece of Beatles paraphernalia it’s actually quite endearing. As a piece of art, however, it fails miserably.

Monday, February 6, 2017

Altered States (1980)

Director: Ken Russell                                        Writer: Paddy Chayefsky
Film Score: John Corigliano                             Cinematography: Jordan Cronenweth
Starring: William Hurt, Blair Brown, Bob Balaban and Charles Haid

Though Altered States was released in 1980, it is very much steeped in a mid-seventies ethos. One only has two look at two Blair Brown films to see the monumental difference. Everything about this film feels as if it was produced in 1973, from the special effects and lighting to the film stock and the direction. Yet her very next film, Continental Divide with John Belushi, feels as if it could have been made in 1990. But perhaps that is the point. The film begins in 1967, and deals with the kind of exploration of consciousness that began with people like Timothy Leary and Carlos Castaneda. In the film William Hurt plays a psychologist studying schizophrenia, and at the same time he is doing studies on his own with a sensory depravation tank to study altered states of consciousness on volunteer students and eventually himself. Bob Balaban plays his research assistant, and Blair Brown is an anthropology doctoral student who falls in bed and in love with him. Hurt’s interest in his studies center on religion and religious symbolism in human consciousness, and some of his hallucinations are about his dead father and his rejection of religion. Before she goes off for a summer of fieldwork in Africa Brown pressures him to marry her as they will both be teaching at Harvard in the coming fall. Hurt, who is strange by all accounts, agrees.

Flash forward seven years and the couple has two kids and are about to divorce. His latest theory is that the atoms that make up the human brain are as old as the planet and therefore are the repository of millions of years of memory, and that somehow religious experience was born of those memories. He heads to Mexico to see if he can find a way into those pre-historical memories to hopefully find a purpose to life that religion can’t answer and never could have. Thaao Penghlis, who makes one of his few film appearances from before he became completely subsumed by daytime television, is his guide. Once there he takes a native drug and hallucinates again, and though disappointed, takes it back with him to Boston. Balaban worries that the drug is building up in his system, in his brain, and tries to get their mutual friend, psychiatrist Charles Haid, to help him stop his experiments. But they continue, and the crux of the film turns on Hurt’s belief that he is actually reverting physically to an earlier state of human existence when he is in the tank, and then actually does. That’s by far the most interesting part of the film, as it then changes from a psychotropic hallucination picture to a pseudo-werewolf film. The special effects, by makeup artist Rick Baker, in that part of the film are fantastic, far better than the hallucination sequences in the rest of it.

Surprisingly, the weakest part of the film is the screenplay by Paddy Chayefsky, who won several Oscars for his screenwriting. Ultimately, it just doesn’t make a lot of sense and seems more self-indulgent than entertaining. Apparently director Ken Russell sort of hijacked the production and kept the writer off the set, but it’s difficult to believe that even had Chayefsky achieved what he wanted to with the picture that it would have been any better. Sci-fi fans have embraced it over the years for it’s 2001-like visual sequences, but again, those seem really just an excuse for trying out visual effects rather than anything that has to do with narrative. The film was nominated for a couple of Oscars, for sound and the score but didn’t win. A few familiar character actors appear in bit parts, John Larrouquette as an x-ray tech, and George Gaynes as a radiologist, and Drew Barrymore as one of Hurt and Brown’s young daughters in her film debut. In the end the philosophical nature of the story simply doesn’t translate to the screen, while the more impressive physical regression isn’t explored in any kind of satisfying detail, leaving the viewer with little to really take away from the experience. As a result, Altered States is little more than a cinematic curiosity.

The Sting (1973)

Director: George Roy Hill                                  Writer: David S. Ward
Film Score: Marvin Hamlish, Scott Joplin         Cinematography: Robert Surtees
Starring: Paul Newman, Robert Redford, Robert Shaw and Charles Durning

The Sting is, quite simply, one of the greatest films of all time. Everything works in the picture, from the acting to the story to the photography to the music. Even the costumes in the picture were designed by the great Edith Head. This is one time when a film’s Academy Award for best picture is unarguable. One of the more creative and entertaining aspects of the film is that not only are the characters being swindled on the screen, but the audience continually finds themselves fooled as well. The effect is utterly delightful. The film opens with a sepia toned Universal logo from 1936, the time period in which the film is set. Behind the opening credits--beautiful Norman Rockwell type paintings that will also introduce each act of the film--is the unmistakable piano music of Scott Joplin. It’s difficult to imagine a time when “The Entertainer” wasn’t immediately recognizable, but Joplin’s ragtime music had been mostly forgotten when Marvin Hamlish decided it would the perfect accompaniment to the story even though it’s from a different time period. As the music speeds up and adds instruments the principal cast is shown in scenes from the film. As the rest of the credits finish, over a scene from a painting of the Depression, suddenly the painting comes to life in Joliet, Illinois, just outside of Chicago.

James Sloyan is a money runner for the mob. After picking up a payment he runs into Robert Earl Jones being attacked in an alley. Robert Redford shows up and the two help him chase away mugger Jack Kehoe. But Jones can’t walk and he needs to deliver some money. Sloyan volunteers and Redford shows him where to hide it in his pants, but tells him he should hide all his money. When Sloyan rounds the corner with the cash he plans on keeping it, but it’s not until he’s in a cab that he realizes it’s his money that’s been stolen. Later, Redford takes his girl out that night and blows all of his share gambling. Mob boss Robert Shaw learns about the theft and orders Jones and Redford’s murder. When Redford learns from vice cop Charles Durning that the money they stole was mob money, he tries to warn Jones but he gets there too late and his partner is already dead. So Redford seeks out Paul Newman, a big-time con artist, to help him take down Shaw to get revenge for Jones’ death. He’s holed up at a brothel run by Eileen Brennan, and is aided by inside men Ray Walston, Harold Gould and John Heffernan. Through all the planning Redford is on the lookout for Shaw’s men, and Durning is on his tail too. They decide to get in on a rigged poker game that Shaw plays on the train from New York to Chicago, then get him caught up in a rigged horse racing scheme that he won’t be able to resist because he wants so badly to get even with Newman who humiliated him during the poker game.

Of course the bare-bones plot is just the beginning, there is also an entire sub-plot con--actually two--going on at the same time that catch the audience up and fool them. In fact, David Ward’s screenplay began as a story of confidence men and the original idea for the project had him directing. But some time later George Roy Hill became attached to it, and having directed the two stars together five years earlier in Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid it didn’t take much arm-twisting to get them both onboard. He did two weeks of rehearsal with the entire cast, and it became clear to the actors that because of his meticulous nature and his enthusiasm, that it was going to be a great film. Nearly every aspect of the confidence men’s world had been researched by Ward and put into the screenplay, and Hill was able to bring that world to life on the screen. In addition to the four stars, the cast of character actors is particularly good. Ray Walston and Eileen Brennan, in particular, are marvelous, and actors like Harold Gould and Dana Elcar really rise above their television work to the benefit of the production. Composer and pianist Marvin Hamlish was actually criticized for the use of ragtime because it was from a different time period than the Depression, but Hill, a pianist himself, was enamored of it and Joplin’s music lifted the film to another level of artistry entirely.

The film was nominated for ten Academy Awards and took home seven of them, all of them absolutely well deserved. In addition to best picture, David Ward won for his brilliant screenplay, which is where it all began. Obviously George Roy Hill won for best direction, expertly bringing all of the elements together on the screen in a cohesive whole. Marvin Hamlish won for his adaptation of Joplin’s music, which is as much a part of the success of the film as the actors or director. Edith Head won again--her last of eight Oscars--for the costume design, as did the team of Henry Bumstead and James W. Payne, the production designers who created and dressed the sets with historical accuracy. And finally William Reynolds won an award for editing, which was very good, especially in the unique transitions he used. One of the ironies of the film is that Robert Shaw wanted a lead actor credit, with his name beside Newman and Redford’s. If he hadn’t, it’s almost sure that he would have won a supporting actor Oscar as well. And yet because he strained the ligaments in his knee before shooting began, he had been willing to bow out of the role. But Hill decided to use the limp and it became part of his character. The Sting is one of the all-time great caper films in cinema history and one of Hollywood’s all-time great movies in any genre.

Sunday, February 5, 2017

U-571 (2000)

Director: Jonathan Mostow                              Writers: Jonathan Mostow & Sam Montgomery
Film Score: Richard Marvin                              Cinematography: Oliver Wood
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Bill Paxton, Harvey Keitel and David Keith

Sixteen years after Wolfgang Peterson filmed the definitive World War Two German submarine picture in Das Boot, and a decade after the Cold War variation hit the screens with The Hunt for Red October, science-fiction writer-director Jonathan Mostow decided to take the genre in his own direction with U-571. This time the crew of a U.S. submarine is out to capture an Enigma machine from a disabled German U-Boat, with the goal of being able to break the Nazi code. The film took some criticism right off the bat because the British were primarily responsible for obtaining the Enigma machines. The U.S. didn’t capture one until 1944. On the opposite side, the scene showing the Germans killing survivors of the ship was another falsehood in that both Axis and Allied subs never took on prisoners, and the Germans only did that once. Nevertheless, audiences were receptive because it is an exciting film. The screenplay, by Mostow and fellow screenwriters Sam Montgomery and David Ayer, isn’t the most inventive and at times it even becomes cartoonish, but the cast is strong and they play it straight and for the most part it works. There’s a noticeable lack of production values on the scenes ashore, which gives it the look of a TV movie from the eighties, but that was probably to save money for the computer graphics that work well on the rest of the film at sea. The film even took home an Academy Award for best sound editing.

The film begins with text telling the reader that in 1942, the Allies were virtually helpless against German submarines as they hadn’t yet cracked the German U-Boat code. A Nazi sub captain Thomas Kretschmann takes aim at a ship and shoots a torpedo that breaks its back. But no sooner do they celebrate than they discover a destroyer bearing down on them from behind and depth charges force the damaged sub to the surface. In the U.S. an angry lieutenant Matthew McConaughey has been turned for his own sub command by captain Bill Paxton because he thinks he isn’t ready. Chief petty officer Harvey Keitel is aware of the situation but there’s nothing he can do. Orders have come down for some kind of secret operation in which the U.S. sub has been made to look like a German one, and men are put onboard who can speak and write in German. Marine major David Keith is there to lead the mission, to pose as a resupply boat sent to aid Kretshmann’s ship, and capture the enigma machine without the Germans knowing about it. They arrive there twelve hours ahead of the real ship, and the commando team takes two rafts over to the U-Boat. They kill the topside crew and manage to get inside. Keith finds the Enigma machine, and only loses a couple of men. They send the German prisoners over first, get everything on the rafts, light the explosives on the German sub and head for their own.

The twist comes when Paxton spots a torpedo heading for the U.S. sub and it explodes dead center. The U.S. ship and all the prisoners are gone, leaving the commando team to scramble first to keep the explosives from going off, and then prepare for the arrival of the real German sub. Suddenly McConaughey has his command. The one thing they have going for them in enemy waters is that they apparently are the enemy. But initially, the biggest threats come from within, first McConaughey’s inexperience, and second from the panic of seaman Erik Palladino--think Bill Paxton in Aliens. The acting is uneven overall, with some of the younger actors on the weak end. McConaughey is the center of the picture and carries it well. Both Paxton and Keith make a minimal impact, but Harvey Keitel was a good choice for McConaughey’s second. Thomas Kretschmann, in one of his earlier films, is exceptional, and one wishes he could have had more screen time. Other familiar faces are Jon Bon Jovi and Jake Weber, and Matthew Settle from Band of Brothers. How the film is received is going to depend on the viewer. Those seeking authenticity will definitely be disappointed and should steer clear. Those able to take it for what it is, a completely fictionalized version of actual events, will be able to enjoy it. And for those looking for action and little else, U-571 is a decent historical thrill ride.

Saturday, February 4, 2017

The Lincoln Lawyer (2011)

Director: Brad Furman                                     Writer: John Romano
Film Score: Cliff Martinez                                Cinematography: Lukas Ettlin
Starring: Matthew McConaughey, Marisa Tomei, Ryan Phillippe and William H. Macy

This is one of those instances where a really great mystery novel transfers seamlessly to the screen. It also helps that it has a star-studded cast. The Lincoln Lawyer is a well-filmed, well-acted, well-written film that satisfies on nearly every level of viewing experience. And that’s not something that can often be said about a film. Director Brad Furman has an affinity for L.A., which comes through in his choice of projects, and while his other films have proved disappointing everything came together in this piece in a way that he had to be extremely happy with. The story is based on the novel by Michael Connelly, which was the first spin-off from his regular detective novels, and he was equally happy with the film. Though it didn’t receive rave reviews, audiences have been mostly positive. This was the second film in which Matthew McConaughey plays a lawyer, the first being John Grisham’s legal thriller A Time to Kill from 1996. In both films his character goes through a learning curve that is impressive to watch. And that’s what makes this film so great. The characterizations are particularly good and so the film doesn’t have to rely completely on plot. Plus, the cinematography is edgy without being off-putting, and the music uses a bit of rap without being intrusive.

The film opens with hot-shot lawyer Matthew McConaughey in his office: his vintage Lincoln Town Car driven by chauffer Laurence Mason. Unlike most lawyers who try to pretend different, he only cares about money. When court clerk John Leguizamo tells him about the rich Ryan Phillippe who has been arrested for assault on a prostitute, it’s easy money in the bank for McConaughey. On the other side of the aisle in the courthouse is the lawyer’s ex-wife, Marisa Tomei, and the two have a surprisingly good relationship, which stems from their mutual love for their daughter. He also has a crack investigator, William H. Macy, who thinks Phillippe is guilty but does a good job of trying to find the truth. Meanwhile cop Michael Paré has a grudge against McConaughey for getting killers out of prison on technicalities, as does assistant D.A. Josh Lucas who would like nothing better than to sandbag the hot shot and put him in his place. Of course Phillippe begins by lying to McConaughey, and eventually the lawyer sees a connection with a murder case in which he advised Michael Peña to plead guilty because he didn’t have a case. It doesn’t take long for McConaughey to realize that Phillippe hired him in order to have all of the evidence of the connection covered under attorney-client privilege, leaving him protected from the first murder. How McConaughey attempts to get justice for everyone involved, while Phillippe tries to do the opposite, is incredibly suspenseful.

Matthew McConaughey is simply marvelous, as both the slick hustler and later in the film when he becomes haunted by his own hubris. And Marisa Tomei is equally impressive as his gorgeous ex-wife. They play off each other brilliantly and have great onscreen chemistry. William H. Macy is also wonderful as the street-wise investigator, as is Josh Logan as the overconfident prosecutor who gets played by McConaughey. In addition to a great principal cast, there are a bunch of great supporting roles. Besides the delightful appearances of Michael Paré, John Leguizamo and Michael Peña, Bryan Cranston plays a homicide detective that McConaughey can’t stand, while Bob Gunton plays Phillippe’s family lawyer. The great Shea Whigham puts in an appearance as a jailhouse snitch, a year into his impressive run on Boardwalk Empire, while Frances Fisher does a nice job of replicating a 40s noir type mother. Nevertheless, even with all of that talent, it’s difficult to not to lay the success of the film on a terrific story, adapted by screenwriter John Romano, and some confident direction by Brad Furman. Because the majority of the film takes pace during the day and the humor in the story, it’s something of the flip side to a film like Collateral’s dark depiction of L.A. at night. Though perhaps not a great work of art, The Lincoln Lawyer is great cinema and well worth seeking out.

Friday, February 3, 2017

A Most Wanted Man (2014)

Director: Anton Corbijn                                    Writer: Andrew Bovell
Film Score: Herbert Grönemeyer                    Cinematography: Benoît Delhomme
Starring: Philip Seymour Hoffman, Nina Hoss, Grigoriy Dobrygin and Daniel Brühl

The death of Philip Seymour Hoffman is still a tough one to get over, especially considering how much great work he was doing at the time. And things were only going to get better. He was consistently appearing in better films, like this one, and was on track to becoming one of the greatest actors of the new century. A Most Wanted Man is an espionage thriller based on the novel by John le Carré and the question of the film’s popularity, or lack thereof, is an interesting one. While it has fairly high ratings on sites like Imdb, it’s clear that many viewers found it boring: code for not enough explosions and car chases. But the thing to remember is that this is not Jason Borne or Luc Besson, this is a spy movie, right out of the seventies. This is a character study, as the two sides move the chess pieces on the board in an attempt to outsmart the other. The plot, while not particularly inventive, is certainly intriguing as Hoffman is not only up against the other side, he’s also up against his own side. In the middle of the film Hoffman makes an interesting point, that arresting and killing the middle men are never going to solve the problem unless they let those middle men lead them to the people in charge. But the police and the U.S. government are just too impatient--or incompetent--to allow that. This is the foundation for the twist that comes at the end of the film.

Philip Seymour Hoffman plays a German counter-terrorist agent in Hamburg, Germany. He gets on the trail of a recent arrival, Grigoriy Dobrygin, who has climbed out of the sea and is walking around the city in a gray hoodie. Helping Hoffman are fellow agents Daniel Brühl, and assistant Nina Hoss. As he tracks Dobrygin’s movements he begins to get heat from the police, who want to pick him up. But Hoffman knows the man is much more valuable for who he can lead them to than what his is himself. At the same time the team is also following a famous Muslim leader Homayoun Ershadi, who they believe is laundering terrorist money in Cyprus. Eventually Robin Wright is called in by the U.S. Embassy to find out why they aren’t arresting Dobrygin. But when she hears what he has to say, she backs Hoffman and the police give him three days to find out something before they arrest him themselves. The people Dobrygin is staying with ask lawyer Rachel McAdams to come and talk to him. He says he’s been tortured by the Russians and she wants to know if he’s seeking asylum. He won’t say, but gives her the name of banker Willem Dafoe to contact while Hoffman’s team discover he’s the son of a dead Russian general. Apparently the father left a large sum of money in Dafoe’s bank and Dobrygin wants to get at it. At that point it doesn’t take much of a leap to believe that Ershadi’s presence in Germany has something to do with moving the money into terrorist hands.

The most obvious flaw of the film is that it positively begs for a European cast. Philip Seymour Hoffman struggles with the German accent, though half the time he sounds as if he’s trying to do Irish. Rachel McAdams is simply out of her element, one moment with passable German and the next sounding like a Valley girl. And then there’s Willem Dafoe, who sounds he’s trying to do a British accent and failing miserably. It’s quite a mess. The only explanation is that the Americans were needed in order to ensure an American audience--in other words, box office dollars--for the film. Hoffman was praised for his performance, and most felt it was a fitting way for him to go out, a powerful character study in which he was the primary figure. And as far as that goes, it should have been enough. Rachel McAdams and Willem Dafoe only drag the whole thing down, when it didn’t have to be that way. Nina Hoss shows how good European actors could have been. Daniel Brühl was also a great choice, but he barely had any screen time. On the technical side, the film is solid in every way. The photography by Benoît Delhomme is gorgeous, and director Anton Corbijn’s choices are equally good, especially in the way he integrates the modern structures of the government buildings with the actors. The film score by Herbert Grönemeyer is subtly appropriate. Ultimately, A Most Wanted Man is an effective suspense film that is marred by the inclusion of American actors in what is essentially a European story.