A Most Wanted Man (2014) |
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General | Extras | ||
Category | Thriller |
Featurette-Making Of Featurette-John Le Carre |
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Rating | |||
Year Of Production | 2014 | ||
Running Time | 116:40 | ||
RSDL / Flipper | Dual Layered | Cast & Crew | |
Start Up | Menu | ||
Region Coding | 4 | Directed By | Anton Corbijn |
Studio
Distributor |
Roadshow Home Entertainment |
Starring |
Philip Seymour Hoffman Willem Defoe Rachel McAdams Robin Wright |
Case | ? | ||
RPI | ? | Music | None Given |
Video | Audio | ||
Pan & Scan/Full Frame | None |
English Dolby Digital 5.1 English Descriptive Audio Dolby Digital 2.0 |
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Widescreen Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | ||
16x9 Enhancement |
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Video Format | 576i (PAL) | ||
Original Aspect Ratio | 2.35:1 | Miscellaneous | |
Jacket Pictures | No | ||
Subtitles | English for the Hearing Impaired | Smoking | No |
Annoying Product Placement | No | ||
Action In or After Credits | No |
John Le Carre has been a best selling author for many years with many of his novels having been made into successful films including Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Tailor of Panama, The Russia House, The Constant Gardener and more. This new film, A Most Wanted Man is based on one of his most recent novels, set in the modern world where intelligence services are focused on the threat of terrorism rather than other countries. It is an interesting and fascinating drama/thriller (as opposed to action/thriller) which marks the final completed film in the career of Philip Seymour Hoffman, with his untimely death occurring only one week after the film's premiere.
The film is set in Hamburg, Germany in the modern day. Hamburg is the main entry port into Germany and has a significant problem with illegal immigration. The film opens with a young man of Chechen Muslim background illegally entering Germany through Hamburg. His name is Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) and his arrival is immediately noted by the Hamburg based anti-terror squad led by Gunther Bachman (Philip Seymour Hoffman). They start to investigate who he is and have him trailed to see if he connects with any known terrorists or terrorist sympathisers. This activity attracts the interest of the CIA whose local lead is Martha Sullivan (Robin Wright) plus other branches of the German police and intelligence services, such as Dieter Mohr (Rainer Bock) who start to squabble over the right approach. Into this volatile mix are also added a prominent private banker in Hamburg, Tommy Brue (Willem Defoe), an illegal immigrant rights lawyer, Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams), an Islamic philanthropist & businessman, Dr Abdullah (Homayoun Ershadi) and others. I won't reveal too much more of the plot as the interactions between these characters and the various twists and turns play out as the movie progresses.
This is an very high quality terrorism thriller that avoids the usual cliches and tells a story where no-one is completely virtuous and things rarely go to plan. Le Carre's book (and the movie) asks questions about the way intelligence services approach the threat of terrorism and what the impact of our very connected and news hungry world is on this. This film does not feature big action scenes and does not play the story for excitement but rather as a thoughtful, tense and thought provoking drama. The result is an intriguing and interesting film which includes a complex plot and interesting characters, aided by the excellent acting especially from Hoffmann. The film is well directed by Anton Corbijn who is probably best known for music videos and a few feature films like The American, another thoughtful and interesting thriller.
Although not a major box office hit, this film is definitely worth looking out for, especially for fans of political drama/thrillers.
There are subtitles available in English for the Hearing Impaired which are clear and easy to read.
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The menu features music and motion.
NOTE: To view non-R4 releases, your equipment needs to be multi-zone compatible and usually also NTSC compatible.
The Region A Blu-ray includes the same extras and I presume the DVD would as well. Let's call it a tie from a DVD perspective.
The video quality is excellent.
The audio quality is very good.
The extras are good quality.Video | |
Audio | |
Extras | |
Plot | |
Overall |
Review Equipment | |
DVD | SONY BDP-S760 Blu-ray, using HDMI output |
Display | Sharp LC52LE820X Quattron 52" Full HD LED-LCD TV . Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. This display device is 16x9 capable. This display device has a maximum native resolution of 1080p. |
Audio Decoder | Built into amplifier. Calibrated with Ultimate DVD Platinum. |
Amplification | Marantz SR5005 |
Speakers | Monitor Audio Bronze 2 (Front), Bronze Centre & Bronze FX (Rears) + Sony SAW2500M Subwoofer |