Movie – A Most Wanted Man (15)

A slick, medium paced, thriller with a disappointing ending. Because that’s life, rather than this being  a bad film.A big plus for me is that it's based in Hamburg so it bought memories of a happy Christmas holiday there last year. Other than that, there are not many smiles during a story that brings up a man clearly running from somewhere arriving in the city up through a man-hole cover.I’m puzzled as to why he approached a random stranger to seek refuge – unless I missed something – and the random stranger’s son happened to know the local lawyer who helps asylum seekers.She tries to keep him safe. Meanwhile, watching all of this unfold is Philip Seymour Hoffman’s character who heads up an underground government spy agency. Is the man a terrorist, can he lead us to suspected terrorists or is he an innocent man who has been tortured?We do know that has arrive to retrieve the money left by his criminal father but to do what with it?Good casting, with the nice surprise of Willem Dafoe as the not really a bad guy  but a banker none the less. Oh, and the Americans come out very bad. Very bad indeed. This is a grey film. There is no colour other than the actor’s makeup, which amazingly does the Hollywood thing of staying on despite being abducted by having a mask thrown over the head. Hamburg, I felt is full of colour; it may have a lot of grey, uniform buildings but there’s not a lot you can do about that apart from add colour and green parks.7½/10Smile factor 5/10