In the last film Phillip Seymour Hoffman finished before his sudden death, he has the leading role in the screen adaptation of the John Le Carré novel. In an absolute thriller, Hoffman is German intelligence operative Günther Bachmann who together with his team of spies are pursuing a mystery man who has the potential to lead them to an arms-dealing group of terrorists.

Also large on screen are Willem Dafoe, who plays Thomas Brue the head of a Hamburg Bank, Rachel McAdams who plays Annabel Richter a young human-rights attorney and Robin Wright as Martha Sullivan a determined CIA Agent.

The German and U.S. security agencies are both interested in a tortured Chechen-Russian immigrant whose recent involvement in the Hamburg Islamic community rings alarm bells. Determined to work out the man’s real identity, the various stakeholders amongst agencies are wrestling between themselves over his role and potential to help them infiltrate the insurgents.

Issa Karpov is a Chechen asylum seeker with suspected terrorist links has been imprisoned & tortured and is now in town to claim his dead father’s bank account. Annabel Richter sees her role as helping Karpov, whilst Günther is determined to use him to get to the big guys.

In a modern day spy thriller, Bachmann’s clichéd reason for his doggedness is “To make the world a safer place”.