Phillip Seymour Hoffman Delivers One Final Great Lead Performance in the Brilliantly Measured "A Most Wanted Man"

A Most Wanted Man reminds us (as if we needed reminding) 
that Phillip Seymour Hoffman was an acting titan.

The life of a spy is not a glamorous one. It is not a life filled with globe-trotting chases, torrid love affairs and action-packed shootouts between dapper physical specimens, but rather a great deal of clerical work, slow surveillance and back-alley conversations between anonymously ordinary folk. It doesn't get the heart pumping; it systematically devours it. At least that's the approach taken by novelist John le Carré, whose take on espionage features a lot of political maneuvering and frustration, but very little sense of fun and adventure.

While that probably doesn't sound like the best sales pitch for a film, it's most certainly an apt one. And although such an approach might not seem the best for a movie, I can tell you that films based on le Carré's work have been some of the best of the last several years.

That doesn't mean they're for everyone. For instance, while I found Tomas Alfredson's Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy to be one of the more rewarding films of 2011, Candace fell asleep around the halfway mark. It's hard to blame her -- we watched it in the middle of a five-film binge, and, on top of that, it is dry, dense and not easily penetrated (I had a similar experience with Zodiac, another moody, slow burn that I should really revisit at some point). 

I say all this as a lead up to a review of A Most Wanted Man, the latest le Carré adaptation and one of my favorite films of 2014. It's cut from the same cloth as Tinker Tailor Solider Spy, but the story isn't half as sprawling, so it feels more focused. For what it's worth: Candace did not fall asleep.

The story revolves around the efforts of an off-the-books terrorist investigation unit in Hamburg, Germany led by the disheveled and jaded Gunther Bachmann (the late Phillip Seymour Hoffman). Gunther prefers to play the long game, collecting information and making contacts within the Muslim community. This puts him at odds with Mohr (Rainer Bock), the leader or a rival unit with a more aggressive and entirely short-sighted approach, not to mention his superiors, men who allowed the 9/11 attackers to operate a home-base in Hamburg right under their noses and have thus developed an itchy trigger finger.

Willem Dafoe and Rachel McAdams bring dimension to their roles.

When Chechen-Russian immigrant Issa Karpov (Grigori Dobrygin) arrives in Hamburg seeking asylum and a large inheritance of dirty money, he becomes a prime target for both units. However, while Mohr wants to bring him in on suspicions of being a jihadist and go to work on him, Gunther wants to keep Issa free and covertly coerce him into donating his money to a supposed Muslim philanthropist (Homayoun Ershadi) to see if the philanthropist will reroute some of the funds to a shipping company Gunther believes to be a front for Al Qaeda.

The idea is to ensnare the philanthropist then use him to get to the actual terrorists, and a tacit agreement with a string-pulling CIA agent (Robin Wright Penn) buys Gunther three days to do things his way. That's no easy task considering he must turn a banker (Willem Dafoe) and Karpov's human right's lawyer (Rachel McAdams) in time to carry out the scheme. Plus, there's the question of if Gunther can even trust these outside officials to stay out of his way, especially in light of a previous failure in Beirut brought on by such bureaucratic cooperation.

This material fits director Anton Corbijn like a glove, as his last foray behind the camera was the similarly muted and restrained, yet atmospherically textured The American. Like that under-appreciated George Clooney gem, A Most Wanted Man is first and foremost a thoughtful and tightly-calibrated character study of a weary professional in a shady, soul-crushing line of work.

It's also a fitting last lead role for Hoffman. Perhaps the preeminent actor of his generation, Hoffman was an actor of tremendous range, but he specialized in playing bleary-eyed, inward sad sacks fighting against irrelevance. It's clear Gunther has made many personal sacrifices for his work -- for proof, just look at his relationship with his second-in-command (Nina Hoss), a woman with whom he shares a shorthand banter and more than a few longing looks. A scene in which the two share a kiss to avoid blowing their cover is as sad as it is charged, because it hints at the connection both have given up in their commitment to "make the world a better place."

Hoffman is as controlled and precise as he's ever been here, and yet the film grants him one last opportunity to nail blustery rage in his final scene. It's the tonal opposite of the scene that concluded Zero Dark Thirty, but intriguingly still hints at the same thematic point -- the hopelessness and disillusionment inherent in the spy game, a profession that takes and takes, but rarely gives back. A

Anderson Does His Thing and Does It Well With "The Grand Budapest Hotel"

An apprentice relationship is at the heart of The Grand Budapest Hotel.

In my review of Moonrise Kingdom, I floated the idea that writer/director Wes Anderson had reemerged as a critical darling after several years of stark criticism for his particular stylistic choices. I argued that he had done so by, oddly enough, leaning even harder into his supposed shortfalls – things like fussy production design, affected tone and stilted emotionality.

Well, you can double down on that notion with his latest, The Grand Budapest Hotel, which focuses on the screwball consequences and whimsical violence that result when an elderly rich woman (Tilda Swinton) dies and leaves an invaluable painting to Monsieur Gustave H. (Ralph Fiennes), her frequent lover and the concierge at the lavish Grand Budapest Hotel. Gustave is aided by his loyal lobby boy Zero (Tony Revolori), all the while a fascist government rises in the background.

Once again, Anderson has been universally heralded for a film that very much dives down the rabbit hole. It’s simply amazing to me that people who found so many issues with underappreciated gems like The Life Aquatic with Steve Zissou and The Darjeeling Limited would so readily herald Budapest, a production that is overwhelmingly concerned with artifice for artifice sake.

I don’t say that as a criticism – I greatly enjoyed the film, and am glad the critical consensus has come back around on (or, perhaps, finally caught up with) one of my favorite filmmakers. However, this is an odd movie for previous Anderson haters to love, because what starts out as a madcap crime caper evolves into mournful meditation on the lost appreciation of ornamental extravagance. Yes, I understand how they might appreciate that Anderson has found the perfect thematic match for his patented approach, but I would expect naysayers would scoff at such a message.

F. Murray Abraham shines in his first Anderson outing.

Budapest is as detached as any film in Anderson’s oeuvre – characters are murdered without pause and, in an epilogue, we learn of the terrible fates of several of our heroes with what amounts to a shrug. And yet, one could argue it’s the most personally reflective work of his career, one that acknowledges the obsessive fussiness and trifling airs, but ultimately concludes there is beauty in such accouterments. It's almost as if Anderson has heard his critics, and this is his response.

 

At a late point in the movie, one of our narrators – there are several narrators, organized like nesting dolls, because, well, why not – says of Gustave, “To be frank, I think his world had vanished long before he ever entered it. But, I will say: he certainly sustained the illusion with a marvelous grace.” It’s hard not to apply those words to Anderson himself, considering how out of time and place his work seems.

Budapest features a number of Anderson’s repertory players, but the main roles are awarded to newcomers like Fiennes, Revolori, Saoirse Ronan, F. Murray Abraham, and Jude Law. Some of his regulars are cast to inject personality into smaller roles (Willem Dafoe, Adrien Brody, Edward Norton, Tilda Swinton, and Jeff Goldblum), but countless others (Harvey Keitel, Bill Murray, Bob Balaban, Jason Schwartzman, and Owen Wilson) turn up in gratuitous cameos that seem intentionally designed to enhance the decorative excess on display.

The cast does a nice job, but, despite the big ensemble, this is mostly a two-man show between an older and younger man. In that way, it’s reminiscent of Anderson’s masterpiece Rushmore, but the dynamic is so different that it’s really its own thing entirely.

Anderson uses a lot of miniature models in the film.

As the grown up Zero, Abraham is a standout, and I’m happy to report Dafoe and Goldblum provide the biggest gut busters, just as they did in Life Aquatic (for some fun, here are short clips of Dafoe and Goldblum from that one). But the movie orbits around Fiennes, a versatile actor who proves more than worthy of Anderson’s greatest character since Royal Tenenbaum. Gustave is a prissy fop that is overwhelmingly concerned with appearances and formality, but he also possesses an unmistakable charm and honor. Fiennes absolutely owns the role, and fans of In Bruges won’t be surprised at just how funny he can make an expletive.

 

Per usual, Anderson incorporates immaculately worked-over production designs. For many of the external shots, he returns to the world of miniature models he explored so expertly in Fantastic Mr. Fox, creating some really breathtaking imagery that adds to the embellished nature of the piece (for more on this, check out this article).

 

Budapest moves at a breakneck pace, and it serves as one of Anderson's zanier entries. It’s not quite at the level of a Rushmore or a The Royal Tenenbaums, but it does represent the work of an auteur at the top of his game. At one point in the film, Gustave defends his proclivity for bedding old ladies by saying something I think applies well to Anderson’s recent output, most especially this film:  “When you’re younger it’s all fillet steak, but as you get older you have to move on to the cheaper cuts, which is fine with me because I like those — more flavorful, so they say.” A

"Out of the Furnace" and "Ain't Them Bodies Saints" Squander Strengths by Overreaching

Despite it's drawbacks, there is a palpable emotional undercurrent to
Out of the Furnace, largely due to Bale's stellar performance.

I recently took in two extremely well-reviewed Casey Affleck movies – Out of the Furnace and Ain’t Them Bodies Saints – and my feelings about them are so similar that it made sense to throw them together in the same review.

Both are stripped-down entries that admirably avoid artifice and offer subtle, lived-in work from a talented assortment of actors. But both also take narratives that would normally make for fun, pulpy b-movies and turn them into somber, artsy-fartsy ballads straining for profundity.

I’m all about subverting genre conventions, and as a general rule I’m not against these sort of lyrical meditations – The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford does something similar, and it’s one of my favorite films (oddly enough, it also stars Affleck as a troubled outsider). But going this route can totally defang a story, turning what could be something worthwhile into a boring and opaque disappointment.

Of the two, Out of the Furnace is the superior film. It stars Christian Bale as a hard-working grunt at a steel mill who lands in jail after a fatal drunk driving accident. While incarcerated, he loses his girlfriend (Zoe Saldana) to a local cop (Forest Whitaker) and misses out on the remaining days of his sickly father. The only thing he retains is the love of his troubled brother (Affleck), a restless and emotionally damaged Iraqi War veteran who falls into a bare-knuckle brawling ring populated by some shady criminals, including a mostly honorable loan shark (Willem Dafoe) and a homicidal maniac (Woody Harrelson).

The film has a lot going for it. All the actors are in peak form, insinuating as much character and personality as is possible with such a bare bones approach. Bale shares a particularly good scene with Saldana that brutally exhibits what his mistake cost him, and his brotherly bond with Affleck is believably wrought.

There’s also a nicely modulated mournfulness hovering over this story of blue collar hardship, and it has a good thread at its core. I could easily imagine all of these components adding up to an excellent drama about a good man who did a bad thing and is now left to pick up the pieces. Instead, writer/director Scott Copper gets bogged down with exploring unsatisfying revenge elements. The film builds to its logical conclusion and ends with a boldly tantalizing final image, but it’s all just so limp.

Ain't Them Bodies Saints embraces a Malick-like aesthetic.

Ain’t Them Bodies Saints fairs worse because the character dynamics aren’t as engrossing and the bad guys are woefully undefined. It focuses on Ruth (Rooney Mara) and Bob (Affleck), Bonnie and Clyde types who get involved in a robbery gone wrong and end up in a shootout during which Ruth shoots a cop (Ben Foster). Since Ruth is pregnant with their child, Bob takes the fall, claiming Ruth was an innocent victim in all of it.

Several years later, Ruth is on the straight and narrow, leading a simple life with her daughter Sylvie. When Bob breaks out of prison prepared to whisk his family away, Ruth has to consider what’s right for her daughter. There’s also the matter of that cop Ruth shot, who in investigating Bob’s jailbreak grows closer to her and Sylvie.

Once again, there are things to like – the setup is decent, the cinematography is breathtaking and the acting is top-notch – but writer/director David Lowery’s emphasis is put so emphatically on the picturesque landscape and poetic atmosphere that the whole thing plays as if on mute. Once Bob breaks out, he not only has to worry about the law, but also three shady goons out for blood, and it is never explained where these baddies came from. Some might see this ambiguity as strength, but it only works to add confusion.

These movies have their share of positives, but ultimately they are just too ponderous and intentionally vague to register as great films. I imagine a certain type of person would go gagga over their delicate sinew or something like that, but there’s just a lifelessness to them that left me wanting more. Out of the Furnace B, Ain’t Them Bodies Saints C+