Going to See Philip Seymour Hoffman

Movie Reviews these days are often frustrating.  They seldom seem to lay out the plot in a way that helps us decide if this film is for us, and they never dare to challenge the greatness of established Hollywood figures, even when they turn out work that is beneath them.

So I'm happy report an exception (I hope! Ask me when I've seen the flick....).  The Boston Globe's Ty Burr has written a thoughtful analysis of Philip Seymour Hoffman's "last leading role before his death", in the John Le Carre intelligence thriller, "A Most Wanted Man".

According to Ty Burr, "With “A Most Wanted Man,” we’re not in the real world, exactly. We’re in John le Carré-land, a landscape of fictional espionage that’s still much closer to the compromises, betrayals, and gray moral areas of realpolitik than most movies and books dare give us. There’s a lot to sort out — who’s on which side, what anyone’s endgame is — which is why a film like “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy” can baffle audiences used to movies that do all the thinking for them.

"“A Most Wanted Man,” directed steadily and subtly by photographer Anton Corbijn from le Carré’s 2008 novel, is a little easier to parse. Partly that’s because it puts so much faith in its central character, Gunther Bachmann, an intelligence lifer exhausted from fighting the bureaucrats while holding on to a spark of honor."

Here's the link to the trailer for the Movie:

I know what I'm doing this evening!