As tense, intimate and methodical as espionage movies come, A Most Wanted Man also boasts one of the last performances from the late, great Philip Seymour Hoffman.

The last time a John le Carre novel was adapted to the big screen, the result was the masterful Tinker Tailor Soldier Spy. Yet while that film was steeped in Cold War politics, A Most Wanted Man is a contemporary tale of terrorism and intelligence gathering that is as thrilling as it is relevant.

Of course it all comes back to the 9/11 attacks on New York City. In the case of German port city Hamburg, that is the place where Al Qaeda terrorists planned the 9/11 attacks, a fact that hangs heavy over the city’s intelligence community, especially Gunther Bachmann (Philip Seymour Hoffman) who leads a secret anti-terrorism team whose patient, bigger picture methods are constantly at odds with other departments.

From le Carre’s pages to Hoffman’s hands, Bachmann is a character of endless treasures. A hard drinking, chain smoking man of unhealthy obsession (Hoffman’s physical, laboured appearance fitting the description), Bachmann is also a master of emotional restraint and manipulation, whose silences hold as much weight as the conviction he has in his job.

One of the things that made Hoffman such a terrific actor was his ability to steal a scene without saying a word, a useful skill when portraying a man whose job is to keep his ear to the grindstone and seek out those essential assets who can lead him to bigger, game changing targets.

Hoffman also excels in playing men of dogged conviction, with Bachmann clear in his pursuit of terrorists (usually of the Islamic kind). Hot on his radar is Issa (Grigoriy Dobrygin) an illegal Chechen Muslim immigrant, who has claim to a large fortune and an ally in attractive human rights lawyer Annabel Richter (Rachel McAdams).

While other German intelligence agencies view Issa as only a threat, Bachmann wants him as bait to lure in bigger fish. As a result A Most Wanted Man is not only about a war on terror but between feuding intelligent agencies, including the C.I.A. with Robin Wright playing a “company” observer whose presence gives Bachmann’s justified paranoia an extra kick.

Le Carre – himself a spy for MI6 during WWII – has made no qualms in his criticisms of America’s handling on the “war on terror”, sentiments which are found in A Most Wanted Man yet presented logically and justifiably, thankfully not becoming the kind of political protest movie that plagued screens shortly after the war in Iraq.

Director Anton Corbijn -whose previous film The American also dealt with the espionage world- skilfully allows le Carre’s labyrinth plot and haunted characters to take shape at a steady pace, the stakes reaching heightened pitches of tension where even the sight of watching a man sign his name brings with it’s a collective sigh of relief at its conclusion.

Shot on location in Hamburg, that feeling of a vibrant city still reeling from its intimate connection with the 9/11 terrorists is felt, especially within its stationed intelligence operatives.

Of late films such as Argo, Zero Dark Thirty and Skyfall have taken an intimate look at intelligence agencies and their agents. They are also exceptionally good films. A Most Wanted Man joins that group.