A Most Wanted Man

Present day Hamburg, Germany: a mysterious, tortured and near-dead half-Chechen, half-Russian man on the run arrives in the city’s Islamic community desperate for help and looking to recover his late Russian father’s ill-gotten fortune. Nothing about this young man seems to add up; is he a victim or a thief or, worse still, an extremist intent on destruction? Drawn into this web of intrigue is a British private banker and a young female lawyer (Rachel McAdams) determined to defend the defenceless. All the while, they are being watched by the brilliant, roguish chief of a covert German spy unit (Philip Seymour Hoffman), who fights to put the pieces together as the clock ticks.

We are immensely proud of this film, which marked the first production from The Ink Factory, made in partnership with Gail Egan and Andrea Calderwood of Potboiler Productions, and Malte Grunert of Amusement Park. Andrew Bovell (‘Lantana’) has taken a tense and deeply moving novel by John le Carré and has crafted a beautifully layered, involving thriller.

Philip Seymour Hoffman commands the film in a breathtaking central performance. “The Bachmann character and Philip, I couldn’t distinguish at some point,” says director Anton Corbijn. “You so believed in that character as a real person that you couldn’t believe it was somebody acting that. He is that good. I don’t have to tell you that he was the best actor of his generation, by far.” It was to be his last completed performance before his tragic death.