A Most Wanted Man: Philip Seymour Hoffman in His Final Leading Role

Alexander Volz

I don’t believe in heaven, but if I’m wrong, I like to think that when Philip Seymour Hoffman arrived through those pearly gates, he recreated the scene from Along Came Polly where he announces, “The best man is in the house!” before proceeding to slip and fall. Overall it was not a good film and it’s not really one that people talk about, but Hoffman was so great that his performance makes it watchable. Though it was an odd role for him to take on, usually reserved for Kevin James-type actors, he somehow made it work.

Roger Ebert called him “One of the best character actors ever” in a review for Flawless. Ebert wasn’t always right, but he did have an uncanny ability to notice greatness early. Hoffman didn’t have stereotypical leading man attraction but his filmography is impressive, not only for the different types of roles that he chose, but also for making the audience believe that he was embodying those characters.

Though Capote or Synecdoche, New York will surely be looked back on as Hoffman’s best work, the first time that I really appreciated his acting ability was in Almost Famous. He played too-cool-for-school music critic Lester Bangs, who had unspoken rules and laws about dealing with rock stars, and I still remember talking with my friends about how weird it was that Hoffman was going to be the villain in Mission: Impossible 3, because how were we supposed to take him seriously as a threat? But while not everybody agrees with me, I’ll be damned if he didn’t pull it off.

There will be two more Hunger Game movies with Hoffman in them, though they aren’t really about him due to the fact that he’s a supporting actor. Hoffman’s last starring role will be playing Gunter Bachmann in A Most Wanted Man, a cerebral spy thriller directed by Anton Corbijn (The American). His character is a paranoid drunk who runs a secret anti-terrorist team when a half-Chechen, half-Russian immigrant turns up in Hamburg close to death and Bachmann has to determine whether the man is a victim or a terrorist.

A Most Wanted Man is based on a book of the same name by John le Carre, who wrote Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy and The Constant Gardener, and also stars Willem Dafoe (Spider-Man, The Last Temptation of Christ), Rachel McAdams (Mean Girls, Midnight in Paris), and Robin Wright (The Princess Bride, The Congress).

Hopefully this work will compare to his best roles, but either way Hoffman is certain to bring a stellar performance to the film as unforgettable as the actor himself.