A Most Wanted Man could have been a tense espionage yarn, but director and cast seem distinctly uninterested in delivering the nail-biting goods.

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A Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn. Written by Andrew Bovell. Based on the novel of the same name by John le Carré. At Kendall Square, Coolidge Corner and other screens around New England.

The late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman in “A Most Wanted Man.”

By Paul Dervis

Suspense novelist John le Carré writes fiction that lives on the dark side. His intelligence operatives are the anti James Bonds, but they have been just as attractive to Hollywood as their cartoon alternatives. His first filmed novel, The Spy Who Came In From the Cold, was an excellent vehicle for Richard Burton, who gave a somber, layered performance that keeps the movie as topical today as when it was released in 1965. Over the decades a number of his novels have been made into successful films: Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy, The Tailor of Panama and The Constant Gardener among them. Part of the appeal of le Carré’s books is that knows of what he speaks, havng been a career member of the British Foreign Service. His characters are anything but glamorous, his settings anything but sophisticated. In terms of film, his plot lines are intricate, but still easy to follow.

So what went wrong with this adaptation of le Carré’s 2008 volume A Most Wanted Man?

Well, for starters, the late Philip Seymour Hoffman. Quite possibly the best actor of his generation, his swan song performance comes off as flat, uninteresting, and passionless. Yes, his character, weary intelligence veteran Gunther, has to project an ultra-cool demeanor, partly to do his job. But there should be suggestions that Gunther’s seeming banality covers hidden depths. Hoffman needed to infuse the character with some sort of psychological intensity, but the actor failed or didn’t even bother to try. Gunther is the engine that drives this story, and if he’s one-dimensional, then so goes the film.

What does the audience take away from Gunther? Well, he smokes a lot of cigarettes. Most of the time he’s disheveled, a la Columbo, and he can be a smart ass. Not enough to keep us interested.

A Most Wanted Man is set in a post 9/11 Hamburg, Germany, the city where the plans for the terrorist attacks on America were made. Since then, the city has become a tightly monitored place. The U.S. Government has maintained a strong presence there, as well as German Intelligence and the local authorities. But the groups are constantly working at cross purposes.

Into this caldron of suspicion comes Issa, a half-Chechen, half-Russian Muslim, a torture victim looking for asylum as well as hoping to claim an inheritance left to him in a secret bank account by his father, a political butcher in his homeland. He doesn’t actually want the blood money; he wishes to give it away and to have it do some good.

But is he really a terrorist?

This is the question the CIA, the Hamburg police, and Gunther’s team need to answer. And they all want to find out the truth via conflicting methods. Gunther and his group take the subtlest approach. The cops want to arrest Issa immediately, while the Americans envision using the guy as bait to catch bigger terrorist fish.

This set-up has the potential to generate a tense espionage yarn, but director (Anton Corbijn) and cast seem distinctly uninterested in delivering the nail-biting goods. The script plods along, dutifully, to its predictable conclusion. Perhaps Corbijn and company thought they were making a ‘thinking man’s thriller,’ so they concluded that emotional juice, eccentric characters, and surprise plot twists were beneath them. Instead of action and conflict, A Most Wanted Man wallows in mood, which it establishes early on and then clings to, desperately.

The cast includes Robin Wright, Rachel McAdams, and Willem Defoe. Wright gets star billing in the role of the American representative, but she does little with what little she is given to do. McAdams plays Anna, the German Civil Rights lawyer working for Issa. She lends the film some quirky energy, her crusading fervor giving the film some of its rare upbeat moments. Ironically, Defoe, as the banker, gives one of his best performances in years. He is anxious, a bit arrogant, dapper, married, but with a roaming eye. He is drawn, unwillingly, into this cloak and dagger scene. Defoe creates a complex figure, ambivalent about his role in the contrivances, but willing to see the plot play out.

And it should be noted that the American cast members were challenged by having to come up with convincing German accents. Don’t expect any consistency. Listening to the disparate accents is at times jarring, to the point that it undercuts even the pretense of verisimilitude.

Hoffman will long be remembered for his superb performances in a number of films, Capote and Doubt among them. A Most Wanted Man will not be on the list.

Paul Dervis has been teaching drama in Canada at Algonquin College as well as the theatre conservatory Ottawa School of Speech & Drama for the past 15 years. Previously he ran theatre companies in Boston, New York, and Montreal. He has directed over 150 stage productions, receiving two dozen awards for hs work. Paul has also directed six films, the most recent being 2011’s The Righteous Tithe.