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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
the John LeCarre spy movie. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last role. with Rachel McAdams and Robin Wright.

Damn! Wow!

A reviewer I just read said it was too slow, too complex, not a Jason Bourne or James Bond flick. No car chases, nobody firing rocket launchers. In more adult terms, not an action adventure fantasy spy movie. It might be a more realistic, truer film about what the spy business really is. And I say that only because I'm not one, never been there, haven't seen the reality. But Le Carre was, and has.

PSH plays a German spy who runs a small unlicensed but official anti terrorist group in Hamburg, a middle aged fat guy, a chain smoker and drinker, burnt out by past double crosses. He looks like the taxi driver he takes as a cover identity in the final sequence.

A young Chechen man, a Muslim, crosses his path. The guy is looking to redeem the legacy of his father, a Russian mafia member, so he can give it away. PSH wants to use him and his lawyer, played by McAdams, as bait to trap a crooked banker as a step towards a respectable figure suspected of knowingly funding terrorists, and then on upward to bigger terrorist targets.

As the plot proceeds, PSH interrogates him, then her, then the banker, breaking them and bending them to his plan without violence, without torture. Almost none, anyway. Not a Jack Bauer in sight.

Robin Wright, with short dark hair, plays the local American CIA chief who would rather just scoop up the Chechen, the lawyer, and the first link in the chain as quick victories, low value though they might be.

PSH's character, Gunther Beckmann, is all internal. Just enough leaks out of Seymour's performance to let the viewer see, that, for all of his tricks and spying, Beckmann is an honest man, Dashel Hammet's ( or is it Raymond Chandler's ? ) " man in a white hat, with a tarnished badge, walking these mean streets," trying to save the innocent, catch real baddies, and emerge unscathed.

And it's fascinatingly subtle to watch. The first half of the movie, Beckmann's people are EVERYWHERE, in every scene, silently in the background, watching, listening, spying, never calling attention to themselves.

If you want to see explosions, gun fights, and car chases, go see something else. But if you want quiet, internal, subtle, adult, realistic spy action, if you've read ANY of Le Carre's books, or seen and appreciated ANY of the movies made from them, go see this. You won't scream or cheer, or laugh much, but you'll leave the theater pondering the spy business, and thinking about the issues.

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Quote:

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Originally posted by NewOldBrownCoat:
the John LeCarre spy movie. Phillip Seymour Hoffman's last role. with Rachel McAdams and Robin Wright.

Damn! Wow!

A reviewer I just read said it was too slow, too complex, not a Jason Bourne or James Bond flick. No car chases, nobody firing rocket launchers. In more adult terms, not an action adventure fantasy spy movie. It might be a more realistic, truer film about what the spy business really is. And I say that only because I'm not one, never been there, haven't seen the reality. But Le Carre was, and has.

PSH plays a German spy who runs a small unlicensed but official anti terrorist group in Hamburg, a middle aged fat guy, a chain smoker and drinker, burnt out by past double crosses. He looks like the taxi driver he takes as a cover identity in the final sequence.

A young Chechen man, a Muslim, crosses his path. The guy is looking to redeem the legacy of his father, a Russian mafia member, so he can give it away. PSH wants to use him and his lawyer, played by McAdams, as bait to trap a crooked banker as a step towards a respectable figure suspected of knowingly funding terrorists, and then on upward to bigger terrorist targets.

As the plot proceeds, PSH interrogates him, then her, then the banker, breaking them and bending them to his plan without violence, without torture. Almost none, anyway. Not a Jack Bauer in sight.

Robin Wright, with short dark hair, plays the local American CIA chief who would rather just scoop up the Chechen, the lawyer, and the first link in the chain as quick victories, low value though they might be.

PSH's character, Gunther Beckmann, is all internal. Just enough leaks out of Seymour's performance to let the viewer see, that, for all of his tricks and spying, Beckmann is an honest man, Dashel Hammet's ( or is it Raymond Chandler's ? ) " man in a white hat, with a tarnished badge, walking these mean streets," trying to save the innocent, catch real baddies, and emerge unscathed.

And it's fascinatingly subtle to watch. The first half of the movie, Beckmann's people are EVERYWHERE, in every scene, silently in the background, watching, listening, spying, never calling attention to themselves.

If you want to see explosions, gun fights, and car chases, go see something else. But if you want quiet, internal, subtle, adult, realistic spy action, if you've read ANY of Le Carre's books, or seen and appreciated ANY of the movies made from them, go see this. You won't scream or cheer, or laugh much, but you'll leave the theater pondering the spy business, and thinking about the issues.

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