Jun 21, 2011

Tradecraft: Anton Corbijn to Direct Le Carré's A Most Wanted Man

A Hamburg-set Le Carré thriller from the director of The American?  Yes, please!  According to The Hollywood Reporter, Anton Corbijn will helm a film adapted by Andrew Bovell (who penned the 2010 movie version of Edge of Darkness for Martin Campbell) from John Le Carré's 2008 novel A Most Wanted Man. The book follows a Chechen Muslim named Issa who illegally immigrates to Hamburg and may be a terrorist. He's at the center of an elaborate plot involving the intelligence agencies of multiple countries who should be allies but can't play nice together and an everyman banker named Tommy Brue who's caught in the middle. I haven't read that one and I'm usually wary of movies revolving around extraordinary rendition (I know, I know; it's an important issue to discuss, but frankly I tend to find it boring), but if anyone can make that subject compelling it's Le Carré. (This trailer for the book certainly makes it appear so!) But they had me at spies in Hamburg anyway; I don't need to know more.  I really enjoyed Corbijn's meditative assassin movie The American (read my review here), though I'll freely admit that while it was beautiful to behold, it lacked a truly compelling plot.  That's something that Le Carré excells at, so this should be a good match.  A Most Wanted Man will lens this winter, primarily in Hamburg.  If nothing else, The American certainly proved that Corbijn shoots European cities and towns like nobody else!

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