You want to talk about feeling the loss of a great actor: mere minutes into director Anton Corbijn’s  A Most Wanted Man, even knowing this was one of Philip Seymour Hoffman’s last movies I forget it’s Hoffman playing the title role of “Gunther Bachmann.”

The plot here slowly reveals itself, so well written as the John le Carre source material is and the screenplay by Andrew Bovell. We get not only right in on the action, feeling as much the location of Hamburg as we do the tightly wound work of Bachmann’s company of spies, but locked into the lives of the people we meet. I found the unspoken relationship between Hoffman’s Bachmann and the truly stupendous Nina Hoss’s “Irna Frey” particularly moving.

Robin Wright adds just that odd sense of ‘should we or should we not’ trust American CIA presence into the mix as “Martha Sullivan” her scenes with Hoffman especially delicious, centered around almost always the two of them sipping or eating something; truly great seemingly normal business with actors saying so much without saying a thing really.

Rachel McAdams with a startling qualities (and fine acting) are hard to deny and Willem Dafoe is so richly attired and cool playing a great “Tommy Bruce”  well out of his depth and trying to stay afloat. But there are so many German actors here that populate the movie, all perfect in their casting and work one mustn’t overlook their contributions as well. A Most Wanted Man is a film you’ll most want to catch.

A Most Wanted Man, directed by Anton Corbijn (The American) and starring Philip Seymour Hoffman, Rachel McAdams, Robin Wright and Willem Dafoe toplining opens in select theaters July 25, 2014.