Wanted: "A Most Wanted Man" (Movie Review)

It is spooky how John le Carre’s portrayal of spies and spy agencies so unerringly plays out in real life. Beginning with “The Spy Who Came in from the Cold” (1965), through the Smiley saga, including the incomparable “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy” (1974), to “A Perfect Spy” (1986), “The Russia House” (1990), “The Tailor of Panama” (2001), and several more, le Carre (pen name of David Moore John Cornwall) explores with shattering effect the moral ambiguity and arrogance of those who set out “to make the world a safer place” but fail disastrously and, more ominously, with no accountability.

The movie adaptation of his 2008 novel, “A Most Wanted Man,” builds on le Carre’s reputation. It is as good as “Tinker, Tailor, Soldier, Spy,” the post-9/11 era replacing the cold war.

Shot in Hamburg, Germany, against the subtext of Mohammed Atta and his fellow conspirators who lived in the city while they plotted 9/11, director Anton Corbijn’s tense and demanding film faithfully conveys le Carre’s recurring theme, that those charged with protecting the innocent are the first to use them as pawns and then fatally betray them.

Seen in the light of Edward Snowden’s revelations of indiscriminate spying by NSA on citizens, lawmakers and heads of state, ‘A Most Wanted Man’ makes for a chilling movie experience.

Issa Karpov (Grigoriy Dobrygin) is a tortured and traumatized young Chechen Muslim with haunting eyes who enters Hamburg illegally by sea. He has no identification papers other than a cryptic letter entitling him to millions of dollars from an international bank. The money is an inheritance from his father, a Russian gangster “killed in action.”

What is the real reason for the bearded, stateless Chechen, whom Interpol has identified as an escaped militant jihadist, ending up at Hamburg? The Germans are particularly sensitive about preventing another 9/11 being masterminded from their gritty city.

There is only one way to find out, and that is to track Issa round the clock.

The responsibility falls on Günther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman), chief of Hamburg’s counter-terrorism squad, the Foreign Acquisitions Unit. Bachmann is a relic, a gruff patriot who has no family ties, no real friends, only a single-minded obsession to nail any potential post-9/11 terrorist.

Annabel Richter, an altruistic immigration lawyer (Rachel McAdams) and head of an organization called Sanctuary North, takes up Issa’s case, determined to hold the law to its letter that anyone is innocent until proven guilty. Thomas Brue, the banker responsible for authenticating Issa’s claim to fortune (Willem Dafoe), bends to Bachmann’s pressure and wears a wire while interviewing Issa.

In this shadowy world where nuance is everything, there is little explicit violence but each scene – rain-soaked streets, trains, ferries, decadent diners, shipyards, the impersonal financial district, minority ghettos - is rife with suggestion of something about to go horribly awry. It is easy to imagine that Hamburg is a city where sinister plots can be hatched to bring the world to its knees.

Issa is a devout Muslim. (The prayer scenes are telling). He is not after his inheritance money for himself: He only wants to distribute it to legitimate charities to bring a modicum of happiness to oppressed, hapless Muslims.

Bachmann and his team want Issa to get his money, convinced that it will eventually lead them to the terror-leaders and arms-dealing groups operating in Hamburg. But Martha Sullivan, the CIA chief stationed in Germany (Robin Wright), and Bachmann’s heartless, Manichaean superiors in Germany’s intelligence service and the interior ministry have different ideas. They pretend to let Bachmann have his way, knowing that, in the end, they will be the ones calling the shots.

Bachmann entices the leader of Hamburg’s Muslim community, Dr. Faisal Abdullah (Iranian actor Homayoun Ershadi) and a fundraiser for moderate Islam, into making a terrible mistake in the distribution of Issa’s inheritance money to Muslim charities. At the last minute, however, Bachmann’s superiors move in and derail his meticulously-planned course of action. You can feel the heat of le Carre’s moral anger emanating from the screen at the deception and treachery of those responsible for upholding the rule of law.

The movie is particularly poignant in that it was Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last full-length work: The gifted actor took his own life after succumbing to his inner demons a few months after the movie was completed. “There is something about that story that spoke to me about where I am now in my life, though it’s not something I could really put into words,” Hoffman said about le Carre’s novel. “I read it and saw myself in it somehow. It’s about being in the middle of your life. It’s as much a story about that, than all of the other things. It’s about a man really confronted with what he’s passionate about pursuing and what that’s done to him.”

We live in dangerous and uncertain times. ‘A Most Wanted Man’ captures the zeitgeist as only a master storyteller like John le Carre can. This taut thriller is a movie to see and to reflect on, and to realize that for people at the top, ideas of right and wrong are malleable and will always remain elusive.

On the Death of Bin Laden

Justice must be served because, unlike revenge, justice is a moral imperative. Without justice, there can be no peace, no progress and no closure.

With the commando raid in Abbottabad that resulted in the death of Osama bin Laden, there is now a sense of closure, not just for the families of the victims of the 9/11 attacks but for Muslims as well. The violent ideology of bin Laden and al-Qaida held Muslims captive for a decade and created existential difficulties for them. With the demise of the terrorist mastermind, Muslims, especially American Muslims, heaved a huge sigh of relief.

Tahir Anwar, the Imam of the South Bay Islamic Association of San Jose, California, struggled with words to express his relief. “It is actually beyond relief,” he said. “Beside killing thousands of innocent people, Bin Laden damaged our religion and society. Other than a few extremists, his message of violence never resonated with Muslims. He was a marginal figure who inflicted tremendous suffering on people. I am happy that the head of the snake has been cut-off and there is now one less evil person on earth.”

The Quran is clear on the question of justice. “O you who believe! Stand out firmly for justice, as witnesses to Allah, even as against yourselves, or your parents, or your kin, and whether it be against rich or poor, for Allah can best protect both.” (4:135)

Dr. Rajabally, a frequent speaker in Islamic conferences who also runs a shelter for abused Muslim women and victims of domestic violence in the San Francisco Bay Area, hopes for two developments to occur in the wake of bin Laden’s death. First, that the recruitment of the vulnerable to fanatical causes around the globe will stop and second, that the U.S. government will treat American-Muslims as an ally in the fight against terrorists and not subject them to racial profiling and similar indignities. “Islam is for justice,” said Rajabally. “Bin Laden committed injustice on a global scale. He gave Islam and Muslims a bad name. He treated Muslims who did not agree with his violent methods – the overwhelming majority of Muslims – as his number one enemy. We are grateful that justice has been finally served.”

Bin Laden was no martyr. He created a personality cult out of his feral fantasy and unbounded egotism, even as America helped create the monster that he became. Many impressionable young Muslims unfortunately fell under his sway only to undermine their faith and waste their lives. Bin Laden preached an ideology of violence in the name of Islam that was rooted not in theology but in ruthless political ambition.

The Arab Spring that is currently transforming the Middle East is proof of how insignificant bin Laden had become. One could argue that he still wielded some influence among the Arabs but after the Tunisian uprising, he became completely irrelevant. While he tried to channel Muslim anger against U.S. foreign policy for his own political hegemony, the revolutions by Tunisians, Egyptians, Libyans, Yemenis and Syrians are signs that Muslims are taking responsibility for their own condition instead of blaming others for it. In that context, ideologues like bin Laden lose all credibility.

American-Muslims were heartened by President Obama when he said “… the United States is not, and never will be, at war with Islam … Bin Laden was not a Muslim leader; he was a mass murderer of Muslims. Indeed, al-Qaida has slaughtered scores of Muslims in many countries, including our own. So his demise should be welcomed by all who believe in peace and human dignity.”

In spite of these considerations, I must confess to being disturbed by the raucous celebration that broke out when bin Laden’s death was announced. How can the death of a human being, no matter how vile, be a cause for celebration and exultation? What should have been a somber occasion turned into a festival with street-dancing and fist-pumping. There is something morally repulsive and spiritually eroding in taking pleasure in the death of a human being.

With the bin Laden "event" behind him, Barack Obama has all but ensured a second-term for himself as president of the United States. Unless something goes horribly awry, and this president has proved extraordinarily lucky in everything he has done so far to make that possibility remote, look for Obama to deliver his second inaugural speech in January of 2013.

Now that bin Laden is dead, America must get out of Afghanistan and Iraq fast. Unlike George Bush, Barack Obama can claim that the mission has indeed been accomplished. There is no need to linger in those countries anymore. What should have been a war on ideas after 9/11 became two viciously polarizing wars of death and destruction, costing thousands of lives and trillions of dollars. Only in withdrawal can come the ultimate closure.