Lawrence.com

Shades of sadness and defeat simmer just below the surface of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s subtle performance in “A Most Wanted Man,” opening today at Liberty Hall. Knowing the late actor’s personal troubles while he was filming the spy thriller, it’s hard not to wonder how much of that informed his character.

Either way, it’s Hoffman who anchors this John le Carré adaptation and makes it compelling, even when the film’s rambling tendencies threaten to derail it.

Hoffman plays a rumpled German intelligence agent named Günther Bachmann. He’s tracking the whereabouts of a Chechen refugee who recently entered Hamburg and is also looking at the money trail surrounding a prominent Muslim professor for possible terrorist connections.

British and American agents circle the investigation, and possible interference from them looms big in the background, especially since American involvement caused Günther’s last big operation to fail. He lost friends in the process, and was left questioning the larger context of his job.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=u3nIeRy5qHw

The movie, and more so the 2008 novel, is a critique of aggressive post-9/11 intelligence policies that trample human rights, but it hinges on Hoffman’s ability to play this struggle out internally. Smart and confident in his own intuition, Günther proceeds the way he sees fit — something that isn’t always encouraged by the higher-ups. His experience and insight don’t allow him to see the people he’s spying on as one-dimensional bad guys, and it’s this gray area that isn’t considered enough by the power players in his community.

“A Most Wanted Man” is stylishly put together by director Anton Corbijn, whose color palette is somber and focused. The script, adapted by Andrew Bovell, doesn’t pump up a lot of sequences for big action thrills, but rather revels in throwing examining the clouded motivations and conflicts of its many supporting characters, including characters played by Willem Dafoe, Rachel McAdams and Robin Wright, all turning in solid performances.

In other words, “A Most Wanted Man” is a slow burn and it meanders a bit. The movie is not as impenetrable, however, as the 2011 le Carré adaptation “Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy,” which starred Gary Oldman as a similarly vexed British agent. The key to understanding the subtleties of the plot are all in Hoffman’s performance: If the exposition gets too dense, the plot’s signposts are written all over his expressive face and body.

The weight of Günther’s responsibility to his country and his agents are in every frame of “A Most Wanted Man,” and a sense of loss pervades the entire movie. Hoffman’s character wrestles with the expendable nature of human life and the costs of his job in this modern age, but the tragedy of the actor’s untimely death also looms large.

His last lead performance is filled with exasperation at a world that refuses to see things the way he does, and Hoffman gives profound voice to this commonality amongst us all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=aCYtIOMkHqg

Kansas City musician-turned filmmaker Joey Skidmore will premiere his campy horror movie “Kiki Meets the Vampires” at 9 p.m. Friday at the Screenland Armour. The film was shot in equal parts Paris and Kansas City, and stars plenty of local actors as well as French punk/ska icons Les Fossoyeurs (which translates appropriately to The Gravediggers).

The low-budget feature was conceived over three years ago by Skidmore, who has been friends with the band since 1991 and cast lead singer Eric "Kiki" Clam in the lead.

"Even with the language barrier, I was impressed how he is the funniest person I've ever met. both onstage and off," Skidmore says. "I always thought he should have a career as a character actor or stand-up comic, as well as a musician."

Like Ringo Starr in The Beatles film "Help!", Kiki is clueless about all the fuss being made around him, as the Vampire Queen targets the hapless fall guy and hilarity ensues. Skidmore lists Peter Sellers and Charlie Chaplin as influences for the film's gags and tone, but there's also plenty of B-movie nudity and gore as well.

The movie is timed with the release of Skidmore's new album "Joey Skidmore Now!", which includes the theme song "Kiki Meets the Vampires," recorded with Les Fossoyeurs, and a cover of "Mama Told Me (Not to Come)" featuring Jim Dandy of Black Oak Arkansas.

“Kiki Meets the Vampires” will be preceded by three local horror-inflected short films and followed by a Q&A session with Skidmore and many of the local cast members.