The Good German (2006) User Reviews

40's Movie styling does not a thriller make.

[Espontaneo · 5/10 · 12 February 2007]

Soderbergh continues to experiment, but as with Solaris, it just doesn't pay off.

Its clear that from the off that Soderbergh has set himself a strict mandate for this film, make it as much like a forties movie as possible. The music, the acting style, the lighting, the process shots and background paintings all give it a great look and feel.

However, everything is so low key and downbeat that it fails to deliver any suspense or menace. What is essentially a modern thriller dressed as classic noir just isn't thrilling. The plot twist and turns but the drama is never heightened, the pace never seems to increase, it just plods along to its conclusion.

Apart from the sex and swearing, the actors seem straight jacketed into their roles by the 40's styling seemingly because the script lacks any of the dry wit and charm you'd find in a genuine movie of this era. George Clooney for example has every little to do, his character has none of the snappy dialog you'd expect, given his Marlowe-esquire role in the plot. Soderbergh compounds matters by drawing an unfortunate comparison with Bogart. Though generally the acting was of the high quality you'd expect from such a sterling cast, it's difficult to empathise with their characters plights given the lack of suspense or melodrama.

Overall the experiment fails to deliver anything other than a beautifully shot but unengaging film.

Very disappointing.

Not-so-good German

[char treuse · 5/10 · 24 January 2007]

A clever look: imitation vintage B-movie in black and white; Steven Soderbergh's appropriate, artful gimmick for this film set in Berlin in the immediate aftermath of WWII.

Cate Blanchett turns in an apt theatrical performance given "The Bad German's" archly retro conceit. As the film's mother/whore femme fatale, Cate is sphinx-like, world-weary and made up like a drag queen at Mardi Gras. George Clooney, meanwhile, turns in his routine performance that is altogether too modern and casual. Put him in scrubs and he's ready again for the ER. Together, they create no chemistry nor any other natural science. Toby McGuire, as a sleazy, black-marketing GI, is so painfully hammy you'll find yourself begging for him to stop.

The storyline is awkwardly developed and unnecessarily opaque, its characters cold and remote. There's really nobody to cheer for or identify with; no emotions to hook us into this world. When was the last time that international intrigue, on-screen, was so unintriguing? It's too bad we've been served such an exciting cinematic look -- an overly lit, noir-like one -- only as window dressing on a story as bleak and dreary as the blitzkrieged landscapes on view.

Still interesting, if over-ambitious

[Chris_Docker · 6/10 · 9 April 2007]

In true noir-ish fashion, much of the intrigue with The Good German is about to whom, and why, the title applies. For a film that has so much devotion to being a 40s recreation or homage, and in spite of another mesmerising performance from the very talented Cate Blanchett, it is also a mystery as to why it is not more of a runaway success.

Employing the grainy black-and-white look of Good Night and Good Luck, only more so, The Good German is a formal exercise in original 40s technique. It uses as its subject 1945 Berlin and the nightmare scenarios of post-war safety. Blanchett plays Lena Brandt, a Jewish German, who attributes her amazing survival to being the ex-wife of an SS man. (She claims he is dead, by the way). Her boyfriend is the violent and abusive Patrick Tully, engagingly played by Tobey Maguire. But haunting her life is also good-guy George Clooney, in the shape of US Captain Jake Geismer. They go back a long way. In more than one sense, to put it delicately. He is disturbed to see her turning tricks as much as he is to see her hanging out with a low-life like Tully.

Lena wants to get out of Berlin, but that is easier said than done. Our film is awash with intrigues as everyone individually tries to help her, but everyone also schemes against each other. Who is a war criminal and who is just an ordinary German? Understandably, no-one wants to be caught with their pants down, and everybody is in Lena's.

Lena herself plays her cards very close to her chest. She only reveals her hand towards the end. As she takes over centre-stage, her story provides some tension and emotional ballast to a plot that is otherwise a bit lifeless. Disappointingly, the usually capable Clooney is the weak link in the acting. His usually charismatically chirpy, cheeky style seems anachronistic and makes him look both typecast and mis-cast. The part could have been written for Humphrey Bogart. There and many thematic and visual references to Casablanca. But Clooney's lack of gravitas highlights the film's stylistic weakness. The Good German is ponderous without conveying a seriousness of the subject matter and so ends up just seeming self-important.

Beautiful noir-ish chiaroscuro lighting is a delicious hearkening back to more substantial classics of old. But, with the exception of Lena, the characters lack the moral ambiguity that was so characteristic of such films. Jake mentions, "the good old days - when you could tell who was the bad guy by who was shooting at you." But, although the line could have come out of the mouth of Bogart, it refers to a period and style of film-making that is a world away from what this tries to be.

Lena (Cate Blanchett) is a mystery, and the film is worth seeing for this magnificent, towering performance, that is also a study in emotional complexity. Long-suffering, she oozes oceans of repressed emotion in a way to make Ingrid Bergman proud. Although more complex than female protagonists of 40s movies, she is still the most successful part of the whole homage.

The story does have a little more subtlety than one might have expected, but I find it hard to imagine vast audiences wading through it joyfully until the pace eventually picks up enough to warrant serious interest. It's good to see the usually very capable Steven Soderbergh directing serious cinema again (instead of his Ocean's Eleven romps) but this over-ambitious project doesn't quite cut it. See it if you're a fan of Blanchett, or if you enjoy seeing Clooney getting beaten up.

A good idea, carried out somewhat badly.

[Poseidon-3 · 20 February 2008]

Clooney is bandied about by the red carpet wags as today's answer to Cary Grant and Clark Gable and, though he indeed always does look smashing, that does not mean he is capable of exhibiting the old world movie star acting that a film like this one calls for. Here, he plays an American officer sent to post WWII Berlin to cover a peace conference who decides to seek out a former lover (Blanchett) while he's there. It turns out, a little too coincidentally, that his driver Maquire also knows her and is carrying on his own affair with her. Blanchett is a woman of many secrets and the more Clooney tries to investigate what's happening with her, the more trouble he finds himself in. He winds up with practically everyone around him, from the Americans to the Soviets, ready to snuff him out as quickly as they can. The film is an experiment. Director Soderbergh set out to recreate the style and technique of 1940's noir film-making and eschewed the use of today's lighting and sound technology, as well as other attributes such as location filming. Clooney more than possesses the classic movie star looks, but his portrayal offers no nods to the past. His walk, his sense of rhythm and his manner are all mostly contemporary, so there's a conflict in presentation from the get-go. If he is less than desirable, than Maguire is nothing short of reprehensible. He's hammy, inappropriate and helplessly 2006 in every aspect of his acting. (These discrepancies are not helped by the inexplicable decision to have the screenplay riddled with expletives that seem terribly out of place within the film, whether they were around in 1945 or not.) In contrast, Blanchett is completely at home and expertly provides the film with the type of character, look and performance that might be found in a film from that era. She completely invests herself in the realm and is easily the best thing about the movie. Bridges and Thompson appear in small roles as confident, potentially shady authority figures. Thompson disappears more into his characterization than Bridges does, but Bridges is all right. Another decent, if contemporary portrayal is turned in by Orser as an army pal of Clooney's who assists him with some investigative details. Oliver, as Blanchett's spouse, is only a couple of years younger than her in real life, but could almost pass for her son! The black and white cinematography varies from striking and evocative to muddy and dull. There is some admirable and interesting art direction, production design and set work. Newman supplies an authentically stirring score though the film ultimately winds up being mostly unworthy of it. It's as if Soderbergh came up with a great idea to pay homage to the great films of the past and then shot himself in the foot through bad decision-making and poor casting (though it's become nearly obligatory by now for his films to star Clooney, he could have at least directed him to a more bit appropriate performance.) The result is a film that bores fans of current movies and disappoints fans of old Hollywood product. The revelations, meant to jolt the viewer, sadly seem a little tame in light of other prior films, not the least of which include "Sophie's Choice" from nearly 25 years earlier! It isn't a complete washout, but certainly falls short.

Worth seeing, but I wish it were better than it is

[zetes · 7/10 · 1 January 2007]

Soderbergh is a director with a decent amount of guts but not a lot of talent. Here he attempts to make a classic Hollywood film, reminiscent of The Third Man and Casablanca, by mimicking, or at least trying to mimic, the classical style of cinematography, by scratching the negative, having the dialogue recorded on mono (I think), and having the actors deliver performances along the lines of the studio days. The gimmick honestly doesn't work all that well. Lovers of classic films will notice how different the film-making is from that of the '40s. How hazy the cinematography is compared to Casablanca or The Third Man (it looks like you're watching a movie on a black and white television). Or how much more swearing and sexual content there is in the film. Yes, the gimmick is a weak one and somewhat detrimental to the rest of the film. Otherwise, it's a pretty good mystery. Not a great one. The pacing lags in the middle, and the mystery only starts to make sense right near the end, when much of the audience has stopped caring. The film's strongest asset is Cate Blanchett, who channels Marlene Dietrich. She is easily one of today's best actresses, and the only cinematographic triumph of the film is the lighting of her face – she's drop-dead beautiful. I'll probably be hung by the nostalgists, but I'd take her – in both her acting skills and beauty – over the lead actresses of Casablanca and The Third Man. George Clooney is decent, but his character is fairly two-dimensional. He's a pretty boring hero. I really liked Tobey Maguire, though. His character was much more interesting, and I wish he could have been in the movie more. I absolutely loved the climactic sequence, but the film continues on for too long after that. Blanchett's big revelation at the end feels rather anticlimactic.

Effective Thriller With A Couple Of Flaws

[Theo Robertson · 7/10 · 31 March 2007]

I went in to see this movie with expectations relatively low . The company I was in had dragged me to see INLAND EMPIRE which I am on record as saying was the worst movie I have paid to see . It should also be remembered that this movie had a very limited release both sides of the pond which considering has an Oscar winning director and three big names in the cast is not a good sign , so I went in with fairly low expectations

Perhaps my low expectations worked in the film's favour because it's a very effective film noir/ political thriller . Soderberg has brought a metonym to the story . He directs in monochrome and has mixed his own filmed material with stock footage of a devastated Berlin . Remember all those old movies where someone is driving a car and it's painfully obvious that it's filmed on a studio set with back projection ? Well there's a scene featuring Toby McGuire and George Clooney in a jeep where the same technique is used . The film also contains a title sequence straight out of the 1940s and has scenes with an overlong shot duration same as film from yesteryear

Unfortunately by doing this Soderbergh draws attention to the fact that Paul Attanasio's screenplay wasn't written in the 40s because there's a sex scene and several uses of the F word . If you're making a film that's a homage to 1940s cinema shouldn't you go the whole hog and write a screenplay in the same manner ? Hasn't the producer shot himself in the foot ? You'll be left scratching your head wondering why sex and bad language has been included

Still it's a minor complaint and one that doesn't destroy the movie which has a plot and if you had no idea that Cate Blanchett has been cast as Lena Brandt then you'd genuinely believe that her character was played by a European actress . Blanchett is the best actress in the world today and the fact that she wasn't Oscar nominated is another symptom that the annual academy awards are becoming more and more worthless . Tobey McGuire as Tully is considered less effective mainly because he has a sex scene which brought the cry from a couple of my cinema companions " That under no circumstances should spidey be seen to have sex " but seeing as they were both females I'm sure they were upset that George Clooney didn't get the opportunity to do some on screen horizontal jogging . Students of film studies will know the term " Impact aesthetics " and there's a great example of this when Captain Geismer studies a hundred dollar bill which will have you jumping out of your seat in fright

This is a fairly good thriller which while it isn't a film for everyone did hold my attention through its running time and despite it's somewhat retro formalist technique has me asking why it didn't get a wider release in both Britain and America ?

We'll Always Have Berlin

[ferguson-6 · 7/10 · 31 December 2006]

Greetings again from the darkness. Always the cameraman first, director Steven Soderbergh plays homage to the films of the 30's and 40's (especially "Casablanca") with this black and white telling of Joseph Kanon's novel.

Soderbergh is really the star here as his use of fixed camera and boom mic's combined with stunning lighting provide some insight into what film-making of that era and this era combined would be. As in the past, the B&W does more for some actors than others. George Clooney looks good (big surprise there) and Tobey Maguire looks impish and goofy. As a matter of fact, as fun as it is to see Batman and Spider-Man on camera together, Maguire played his character so over the top, that I was actually relieved at his road traveled.

Proving to be a near reincarnation of Marlene Dietrich or Greta Garbo, Cate Blanchett really shines here as the misguided heroine. Although she has few actual lines of dialogue, her "look" is so wonderful, it matters little. I kept waiting for her to break out in a song while in the tavern.

Decent support work provided the rarely seen Beau Bridges and veteran Jack Thompson are a nice touch and the actual news footage of the war parade and the summit with Truman, Stalin and Churchill is more than a bit creepy.

The only thing preventing the film from a higher rating is the almost lame, near boring story. We never connect with Clooney or Blanchett and feel like cheering when Maguire's lines mercifully end. A bit more of the Bridges character and an earlier explanation of Blanchett's motivation would have gone a long way in drawing the audience in.

Nobody said he was wrong at the time.

[lastliberal · 7/10 · 13 January 2008]

The War brought out some very interesting moral questions, some of which are hinted at in the classic-looking film. Was the use of the atomic bomb moral? Did the average German bear some measure of guilt for letting the Holocaust happen? And, most importantly, was it right for America to hide the sins of the German scientists to gain their knowledge? That is the key question running throughout the film.

Fans of classic film - those who love Casablanca, The Third Man, or A Foreign Affair - will appreciate the references to those films in the look and feel of this one.

Fans of George Clooney and Cate Blanchett will be thrilled at their performance, especially Blanchett's. Fans of Tobey Maguire may be shock at his anti-hero, but he really played the part well.

The look and feel of Steven Soderbergh's homage is brilliant, and the music of Thomas Newman made this an extremely enjoyable experience.

I know what Soderbergh is doing here. That doesn't mean I have to like it.

[MBunge · 3/10 · 6 August 2010]

The Good German is an experiment gone horribly, horribly wrong, like Frankenstein's Monster or Crystal Pepsi. Director Stephen Soderbergh somehow got it into his head to mimic films from the 1940s. Not be inspired by them or pay homage to them, but literally imitate their look and sound and feel. I'm not sure that's a good idea in the first place and then Soderbergh does it in such a self-conscious, grating and ponderous fashion that he creates a film that is, to all intents and purposes, unwatchable.

Jake Geismer (George Clooney) is a war correspondent sent to post-WWII Berlin to cover the Potsdam conference of Truman, Churchill and Stalin. It's a good thing there were other reporters there because Jake completely blows off that historic event to instead get mixed up in a simple yet confusing mystery involving his older German lover Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett) and a rough-edged Army corporal named Tully (Tobey Maguire). Lena desperately wants to get out of Berlin and there are more than a few men willing to help her, some out of love and others for her help in keeping a secret. The unfocused story touches rather ham handedly on collective German guilt over the Holocaust, the first rumblings of the Cold War, the Nazi contribution to the U.S. missile program, life in the rubble of post-War Berlin and Jake Geismer being the biggest wuss in Europe. Seriously, Geismer gets his ass kicked so regularly it's like a running gag, except this movie isn't a comedy.

I wasn't exaggerating when I described The Good German as a bad replica of a 1940s film. It's in black-and-white and Soderbergh uses the same sort of camera work, lighting and stage blocking as that era. He incessantly blasts scenes with the same kind of melodramatic theme music as that time. The movie is littered with stock footage of post-War Germany. Soderbergh even uses 1940's style editing techniques to segue from one scene to another. If that sort of overdrive nostalgia sounds like it might be neat, trust me. It's not.

The problem is that all that effort is painfully purposeless. There's no point at all to any of that cinematic affectation. It doesn't lead anywhere or do anything to enhance the story. There's no metacommentary of any sort at work here. It's just a 21st century filmmaker apparently entertaining himself by regurgitating nearly 60 year old cinema. Imagine seeing modern NBA players trying to replicate on the court the way players shot, dribbled and passed back in the 1940s. It would look artificial and forced and out of sync. That's a great description of The Good German.

Making matters worse, Soderbergh was apparently so caught up in his duplication efforts that he didn't notice that his story meanders and stops making sense at a couple points. He was also oblivious to his three big stars giving atrocious performances. Tobey Maguire's acting ranges from looking like he's reading off cue cards to raging like a meth addict who just smoked some crank. George Clooney is essentially doing a time traveling version of Danny Ocean. And Cate Blanchett seems to be focusing all her energy into speaking two octaves lower than her normal voice.

It was a struggle to make it all the way through this movie. Like being stuck in a time warp where the seconds become minutes and the minutes become hours, the length of this film stretched out longer than the Pleistocene Era. I started to root for everyone to die in an anachronistic atomic explosion, just so this bleepin' piece of crap would end.

One thing this film does prove is the old adage that when it comes to making movies, nobody knows nothing'. Soderbergh and Clooney have teamed up to do some excellent work and then they collaborate on this punishing waste of time and money.

Stay far away from The Good German.

Good technical stuff in search of a story

[Katiedot · 6/10 · 10 March 2007]

This film manages the unusual trick of having the billed star (George Clooney) as a bit part while the actual star of the film (the 'good German') barely appears at all. Unfortunately I don't think this was intentional.

Soderbergh seems to have concentrated so hard showing off the technical aspects that it really doesn't matter what the audience feels, or even if the audience feels anything. I think he got so excited at the look of the film that it clean escaped him that the point of a film is to engage the audience and tell a story.

Tobey Maguire is, as advertised, uncannily unpleasant, but still not believable as a baddie. Just not menacing enough.

Robin Weigert, as the tart with a heart, features in the role of comedy light relief. While everyone else is doing noir, she seems to be in an entirely different film altogether - burlesque, maybe, although it kind of works – as well as interpreter of what's going on in Lena's mind seeing as Lena is strangely unable to speak for herself during the entire film.

Cate perfectly captures that emotionless, world-weary attitude but at the expense of any sort of personality that makes you believe that a man could want her, let alone fall in love with. The Marlene Dietrich impersonation grates towards the end of the film.

George Clooney smokes a cigarette stylishly and smoulders well when called to but just doesn't seem to have any important part in the film, despite a lot of screen time.

He simply isn't the catalyst for what happens in the film; pretty much all the events in the film had already been started in motion long before he even arrives on the scene. He doesn't move the story along much. Oddly, it feels as though it would be possible to take him out of the film entirely and still have nearly all the same events take place - bar a bit towards the end.

He's basically a loser (not an anti hero) and hard to sympathise with. He loses every fight he's in (and he gets beaten up a lot); he's constantly lied to; he's played by the other characters like a fish on a line; he doesn't get the girl and can't even get laid despite paying for it. He's totally lost, running from pillar to post asking people what do they know, what are they doing and why are they doing it. Tully announces him as a patsy at the beginning of the film, and so he is. So far from Rick in Casablanca who had everything under control.

Where are this man's emotions? He supposedly came back to Berlin to find Lena but when he does find her he seems strangely unconcerned with her circumstances. Finally, when at the very end he seems to have figured out that it's not going to work out between them he just walks away from the plane seemingly without a care in the world. If at any point there's some internal crisis as he realises his heart is about to be broken, we don't see it.

Other notable absences include motivation for about half the cast: there's zero chemistry between Jake and Lena and equally nothing between Lena and the Tobey Maguire character. The only shimmer of emotion in the film is between Lena and Emil, the 'good German' - where there shouldn't be.

Soderbergh is a good director but not as good as he thinks he is. At several points the characters have to do a voice over to explain what's going on in their minds (isn't that what acting and a good script are for?), and other characters are called in to explain the plot and other characters' motivations so the audience can understand what's going on. Not usually a good sign in a film if you need to add explanations.

Third Men Don't Wear Plaid on a Night in Casablanca

[mick-137 · 3/10 · 30 September 2008]

Unforgivable pastiche of some infinitely better movies. George Clooney is a journalist sent to cover the 1945 Potsdam conference and in typical movie journalist fashion somehow manages to do no work whatsoever while being drawn into a web of mystery and intrigue. He's possibly the least effectual thriller hero of all time, more Holly Golightly than Holly Martins, and one of the few pleasures the film offers is wondering who will be the next character to jump him from behind and beat him senseless. Will it be the double amputee? The little boy with the bicycle? Absurdities abound, there's unforgivable misuse of narration and all the moody black-and-white photography in the world couldn't make up for a plot more full of holes than the buildings of post-War Berlin. All this could have been redeemed by a bit of chemistry between the leads or some lively pacing but everybody involved seems to be half asleep, possibly numbed into submission by the dreary sub-Elgarian score. The only good thing about this movie is that you leave with a greatly enhanced respect for the skill and sophistication of the bygone filmmakers whose work it so singularly fails to emulate.

The Good German is an ironic comment on Good Americans

[d7eb2000 · 10/10 · 25 November 2006]

This movie is an homage not only to the vocabulary of film noir , but also to its social and political genesis. Film Noir developed after World War II and was an outgrowth of both the cynicism that was generated by WW II because it turned out to need another war to be the war to end all wars.... and because of the enormous evil that World War II revealed in contradistinction to the sunny idealism of the American Project.

Film Noir of the 40's and 50's was a reaction to WW II, but those films themselves were always crime stories about naive men dragged into terrible circumstances through the lure of seductive, dangerous women. But they were never about the war itself or anything to do with the war itself. WWII movies were patriotic paeans to heroism like 30 Seconds over Tokyo or the common man like A Walk in the Sun or home front heroism like Mrs. Mininver. Indeed only Casablanca itself, as exemplified early on by Rick's character was suffused with some of the cynicism that we see in film noir, but the reason Casablance is beloved is because the cynicism melts away in the the understanding that there is something greater than one's own preservation.

What is wonderful about the Good German is that it is a Film Noir film about the War itself and also about war in general...then and now. The film and its concerns are not dated or meaningless, but very much of the moment.

The film also pays visual homage to other movies of the era, from the warm hearted cynicism of Billy Wilder's A Foreign Affair with Jean Arthur as the parochial Congressperson (like in this film) and Marlene Dietrich as the dangerous vamp with a dark past. Roberto Rossellini's Germany:Year Zero, shot in postwar Berlin, shows how fear, deprivation and terror destroy the soul as ell as the body.

The Congressman is not just a boob but a participant in the propagation of evil and the Good American General of Beau Bridges is anything but good. Indeed, as we know now Americans protected Nazis who could help us in terms of confronting the next evil--Communism and Russia. And the story they tell about the V-2 rocket is true. The Germans and Werner van Braun used up the lives and caused the deaths of Jewish and other POW's slave labor to create and launch them and we, in terms of the American occupation and the incipient CIA aka the OSS, helped mass murderers to safety.

Even the lawyer Teitel, the man researching the Nuremberg Trials, whose sole purpose is to pursue Justice, can be compromised. Tobey Maguire was chosen to play the vicious, venal Tully because to most American audiences he, as Peter Parker, typifies the best of America. He is meant to be jarring to the audience. Lena, indeed is the vamp, but unlike old film noir like Out of the Past, she doesn't lead Jake on, Jake misleads himself about her. She is just a desperate woman struggling to survive.

Some would say this is a movie about moral ambiguities, but I think it's not that ambiguous. The filmmakers have cast judgment on some of our post war behavior and found it wanting.

The only romanticism in this movie is in the style, a valentine to the look of old movies; there is no romanticism in its view of America at war.

'Good German' not that good a film

[editor-299 · 6/10 · 13 December 2006]

The gritty black-and-white cinematography suggests a film noir revisit, but that's as compelling as this cross between "Casablanca" and "Chinatown" manages to achieve.

With its homage to 1940s bleak, complete with washout scenes and clipped dialogue, director Stephen Soderbergh is obviously respectful of the era, but the script, adapted by Paul Attanasio, leaves much to be desired.

After all, is this an indictment on the German people; an accusation of collusion against the victorious Allied powers (who took whatever Nazi scientist and technician for their own, no matter what they may have done during the war); or is it just an old-fashioned murder mystery? The film cannot seem to decide what it wants to be.

"The Good German" takes place in post-war Berlin, and focuses on correspondent Jake Geismer (George Clooney). Evidently, he works for the lefty magazine The New Republic (I didn't know that publication was around in WWII or if it was considered progressive at the time, but I digress).

He is accompanied by a seedy driver, Cpl. Tully (Tobey Maguire) and nothing is as it seems.Tully is ultimately murdered, and Jake, unable to get press credentials to cover the July, 1945 Potsdam Conference (with Truman, Churchill and Stalin), begins to investigate some seedy goings-on.

It turns out that Tully was living with a German prostitute, Lena (Cate Blanchett), a woman Jake knew before the war. The Russians and Americans want her husband, Emil, because of his work on the V-2 rocket program; but she claims he's dead.

Blancett – with an icy cool Dietrich-like manner – steals the picture, and she may end up with another Oscar nomination for her efforts. Clooney, on the other hand, spends most of the film getting the crap beat out of him (every Republican's fantasy, eh?).

Despite repeated attempts to reach the intrigue bar set by the much superior Carol Reed picture, "The Third Man" (1950), "The Good German" never matches it.

Did ANYBODY read the book?

[rnward · 1/10 · 6 October 2007]

This movie is a complete distortion of an excellent book, which I happened to read when I was in Berlin. Characters are combined, distorted and outright eliminated. Sure, it's filmed in film noir style. Big deal. Without character motivation, consistency and background, this film is a total waste. The acting was wooden, the music was melodramatic, the dialog was lame, and the plot was utterly incomprehensible as filmed. I urge anyone who has some interest in reading a great mystery that was researched thoroughly and written in a suspenseful way to get a copy and check it out. I loved this book - I hated the movie.

Give it a miss.

What a shame...

[redwriter46 · 5 January 2007]

I read the book, then saw the movie and cannot for the life of me figure out why screenwriters/producers/directors, et al take a perfectly good story and bastardize it all to hell! The only resemblance between the book and movie is the title and the character's names. How disappointing the movie was, they combined subplots into the main plot, distorted the main characters and made it something it wasn't. Generally books are better than movies, granted, but in this case they aren't even in the same universe, not even a parallel one. The music was overkill, nothing like a 40's flick. Overall, a HUGE disappointment! Don't waste your time/money. Read the book instead!

B&W But Mostly Shades Of Grey

[hellokristen · 6/10 · 15 December 2006]

"At least during the war you could tell who the bad guys were. They were the ones shooting at you." – George Clooney's character

This is a very grim little movie. Everyone is stepping over piles of rubble and living in partially bombed out buildings in 1947 Berlin.

It's done in black and white using all the techniques filmmakers used in the 1940s. You'll feel you're watching an actual 1940s movie – except it's almost entirely devoid of glamor or anything nice to look at (which filmmakers back then knew was essential to the movie-going experience).

Clooney is good -- yet not sexy. In fact the movie is devoid of any feeling except "My God what an awful time we're all having!"

Cate Blanchett is quite good, seeming a bit like Marlene Dietrich in certain close-ups. Tobey Maguire is cast against type and having a good time.

If you're looking to have some fun at this movie, you can start counting the 1940s film conventions Soderbergh experiments with. Or count the allusions to "Casablanca" (a much more satisfying and engaging film.)

A mystery in post-world war 2 Germany

[starlit-sky · 6/10 · 15 January 2007]

I must say that I was disappointed in The Good German. I think the director did a nice job of creating a certain black and white style, reminiscent of old era movies. But I think he did too many things way too similar to some well-known classics. And this makes The Good German look like as if it is trying to be a black and white classic from old times and not an original in its own account. It makes the audience remember those other movies and you automatically associate The Good German with those other movies (that is, if you have seen them).

George Clooney plays an American officer Captain Jake who comes to post-war Germany and runs into his old flame Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett). Soon, we find out that everybody (Russians and Americans) are after Lena's husband, Emil Brandt. According to her wife Lena, Emil is already dead. Captain Jake gets involved in the search for Emil Brandt and discovers some important facts.

I was also disappointed in the story. Either there were some unexplained things, some inconsistencies or I missed very important points because at the end I could not make sense of some things. George Clooney's character Jake, for some strange reason, never carries a gun. He is also a terrible fighter, he always gets beaten up. I honestly cannot think of one scene where he actually came out as the winner. No gun, no fighting skills - he is not your regular hero.

I also think Tobey Maguire was wrongly cast for this one. He is suited for roles where he is the nice, decent guy (He was perfect in Seabiscuit, The Cider House Rules and Wonder Boys) but he is so out of his element in this one. The only good thing about this movie, in my opinion, is Cate Blanchett. She is one of the finest actors in our time and she is a pleasure to watch. Her charisma on the screen is undeniable. And she makes a damn good German. She is just full of talent (see her also in Babel and The Notes on a Scandal).

The Good Homage

[damorton · 7/10 · 24 November 2006]

The Good Homage A Review of Steven Soderbergh The Good German. by Drew Morton

Rating: B+

When I attended a screening of Steven Soderbergh's latest film The Good German two weeks ago at the Aero Theater in Santa Monica, Soderbergh introduced the film, which was screening on a double-bill with Casablanca, as one Michael Curtiz could have made if there lacked the Production Code. Keeping this as his objective, Soderbergh filmed the project only with equipment available in 1945 while juxiposing this style with explicit violence, nudity, and cursing. The double-bill idea was fitting; essentially, The Good German is a parallel universe version of Casablanca, which both makes the film interesting and ultimately lends it a certain hollowness.

Without delving too deeply into the plot, the film begins with journalist Jake Geismer (George Clooney) arriving in Berlin to report on the peace negotiations following the immediate end of World War II. At the request of Colonel Muller (Beau Bridges), Geismer is paired up with Tully (Tobey Maguire), an American soldier who will be his escort and driver through the fragmented city. However, not long after his arrival, Geismer discovers that "things are not the way they appear to be," as Tully robs him and beats him following the discovery that Tully is both dating his former flame, Lena (Cate Blanchett) and is involved with the black market. Not long after, an American service man turns up dead and Geismer finds himself both in the middle of a murder mystery and within the remnants of his relationship with Lena.

The film finds itself so massively indebt towards the superior films of Curtiz and Carol Reed that one senses an overcomplicated plot as a means of compensation. However, as labyrinthine as the plot becomes, the film is almost solely about its noir style and the actors inhabiting the gritty streets of Berlin, which looks strikingly similar to the streets of Reed's The Third Man. Aesthetically, Soderbergh's black and white photography, credited under his pseudonym Peter Andrews, and the production design by his regular collaborator Phillip Messina, essentially stands as its own character and will probably bear fruits come award time. Soderbergh's Berlin is beautifully haunting, amazingly constructed out of Hollywood backlots and found footage, full of images that linger in the viewer's mind.

Mise-en-scene aside, the film's main attraction is its stars. Clooney takes a mildly-startling turn as Geismer who, while he shares Clooney's charm and sex appeal, completely lacks any physical empowerment. While not as ineffectual as his character in Stephen Gaghan's Syriana, Clooney is beaten probably six or seven times throughout the film and during the climax, is almost frighteningly useless. Sensing this early in the film after ambushed by Tully, Geismer seemingly comes to the conclusion that in order to overcome such obstacles, he must rely both on his charms and power of observation. Blachett, taking the role of Lena, makes the most of her cold-hearted moll, who finds herself sinking into prostitution to survive. The supporting players, most notably Leland Orser turn as Geismer's old friend and Deadwood's Robin Weigert as Lena's "roommate" are also noteworthy.

Conversely, it is Maguire's gear-shifting performance that stands out as one of the most problematic characteristics of the film. Due to his fame as Peter Parker, Maguire comes off as being sorely miscast in the role of the sadistic Tully. His teenaged looks and boyish voice mocks the delivery of his dialogue to a somewhat comical end. However, at the same time, his boyish charm makes the horrible violence he inflicts much more terrifying.

Performances aside, at the end of the film the viewer is left with a bittersweet taste on their cinematic pallet. On one hand, one has just watched a successful and entertaining homage while, on the other hand, all they have watched are a blend of superior films channeled through the interesting notion of "what if there hadn't been a Hays code?" The Good German is Casablanca, literally right down to the last moments. Is this a good thing? Well, the film is not nearly as flat as Van Sant's remake of Psycho, but it does lack both the innovation of a Tarantino homage and substance of greater Soderbergh films, be it a genre homage like Out of Sight or experiment along the lines of Bubble.

Drew Morton is a graduate student at UCLA in Film Studies/Critical Studies department. He is presenting a paper entitled "Twin Cinema: The False Binary of 'Hollywood' and 'Independent' within the films of Steven Soderbergh" at the annual conference of the Society of Cinema and Media Studies in March. Also a writer for the media blog "Dr. Mabuse's Kaleido-Scope," he is also currently editing an anthology on American Independent Film.

Allied Powers with no other aims, eh?

[lee_eisenberg · 6/10 · 17 June 2007]

I consider George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and Tobey Maguire three of the greatest stars of our time. Which makes it somewhat strange to see them in "The Good German". I thought that this was a fairly good movie, but I couldn't really tell whether the movie was simply paying homage to "Casablanca" or trying to imitate it. I felt that the movie's strength was showing what went on behind the scenes in post-war Berlin. Truman, Churchill and Stalin arrived claiming that they had no expansionist plans, when they in reality aimed to totally carve up Europe for the next forty years. And all the while, a future war was clearly brewing between the US and USSR. Not to mention the intrigue that the movie portrays.

So, I think that the movie is mostly good for that. It can't emulate the spirit of old-time film-making, but offers a chilling account of geopolitics, just like Clooney's previous movie "Syriana".

PS: Last year saw the release of "The Good German" and "The Good Shepherd", so David Letterman said that 2007 will see the release of "The Good German Shepherd".

Great book ruined in film

[wwm_mem · 2/10 · 14 March 2008]

I loved the film noir aspect of this film, I think the director captured the genre. However, I think the screenplay ruined the movie. The book was excellent but the screenplay changed the characters so much that the movie was ruined for me. Lena was NOT a prostitute or a Jew and she didn't turn in other Jews for the Nazi's. Tully didn't even know Jake. The German cop was the good German. Emil Brandt was not a secretary or a good guy. Why make Lena a horrible person and then turn around and make her husband who was a horrible person someone who wanted to come clean. If you've read the book, don't bother with the movie. You'll hate it.

Passable Entertainment for Classic Film Enthusiasts

[WriterDave · 7/10 · 28 May 2007]

Steven Soderberg attempts to re-imagine the iconic noir films of the 1940's with "The Good German." With the old fashioned music score from Thomas Newman and the evocative black-and-white cinematography, he scores in spades. Unfortunately there are some frustrating elements that keep the film from becoming a perfect send-up of those classics.

The acting from Clooney and Blanchett are spot on for the time period the film invokes. Blanchett has received some flack for her thick German accent, and Clooney ridiculed for being wooden, but the styles fit for what Soderbergh was after. Sadly, for the first twenty minutes of the film, Soderbergh allows Tobey Maguire (poorly cast here) to go gonzo in a vain attempt by the non-actor to show he can do more than stare vapidly at the camera or appear all smarmy and misty eyed.

Soderbergh also makes the mistake of utilizing two of the worst elements of films from that time period: unnecessary voice-overs and stock footage to explain plot points when the screenwriter ran out of ideas or the producers cut back on the budget. Oddly, he also infuses a very modern use of sex and violence (though very brief) and profanity (seemingly for comic relief).

Overall, despite some of the distractions, the plot is often engrossing, and as stylish throw-back entertainment designed for the pleasure of movie buffs longing for the days of WWII era noir, the film makes the grade.

They don't make 'em like they used to - and this is why!

[Mr_PCM · 4/10 · 5 April 2007]

The Good German is an interesting experiment on the part of George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, an experiment that, like Solaris, just does not pay off at all. This time, Soderbergh has tried to recreate the classic 30s and 40s noir films, drawing particularly heavily on Casablanca and The Third Man. Shot in black and white, and even in 1.66.1 rather than today's traditional widescreen, the film is an attempt to recapture an old film-making magic, but unfortunately the magic is long gone, and as a result The Good German comes across as simply trying too hard to bring back the 40s style. Further, in the attempt to fully realise and recreate the traditional noir style, substance is sacrificed, resulting in a rather thin and uninteresting plot. The characters are dull 1-dimensional and unengaging, to the extant that it is hard to care what happens to any of them. It is an attempt to make a 40s noir as they would have been made without the Hayes Code's restrictions on sex, swearing and violence - but unfortunately this lack of restriction makes little difference to the film.

There is little discernible 'plot' over a third into the film, but what plot there is(for want of a better term) revolves around a great deal of intrigue about a murder and a missing former SS man in Berlin during the Potsdam conference. Clooney is an American journalist who encounters an old flame (Blanchett) who is now accompanied by Clooney's driver - played by Tobey Maguire. While Clooney and Blanchett are rather bland, Maguire at least injects a mild amount of interest by playing against type as a rather vile driver in the army. The movie thus suffers greatly when he is killed off early. By the time the plot 'intrigue' started to resolve itself, I was past caring why people were searching for this man (who is also Blanchett's husband) and whether or not they found him. The film sacrifices substance for style - but unfortunately the style isn't exactly on the money. It all looks stylish enough in black and white, Soderbergh heavily uses shadow, to the extent that it is comparable to Joel Schumacher's overuse of dry ice and smoke in his 80s films.

The final scene is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of the end of Casablanca, but rather than lending the film credibility it only serves to underline the deficiencies of the Good German in trying to measure up to the 1940s classic. Blanchett is no Bergman and Clooney sure isn't Humphrey Bogart! Overall the film starts out with an interesting aim but in the end comes over as a load of pretentious and uninteresting twaddle, trying to capture (or steal) the magic from a movie style long gone. Casablanca is timeless. This is shameless. And a real shame.

Absolutely mesmerizing

[Potty-Man · 9/10 · 27 December 2006]

Steven Soderberg is a hit-or-miss director. Either his films are acclaimed and loved by most, or they're infamous and hated. Having read the reviews, and having heard the negative buzz, I was expecting a miss. Boy, was I pleasantly surprised.

The film was mesmerizing. Say what you will about it, you have to commend Soderbergh on his cinematography skills. Black and white hasn't looked this good since "The Man Who Wasn't There". It was so rich, with so many textures. I couldn't take my eyes off the screen. Definitely some of the best looking cinematography I've seen this year.

Also the score is great. It evokes just the right noir-ish atmosphere. The editing is crisp and clever. All of the technical elements of this movie are flawless.

I heard people complain about the story and the acting. I thought the acting was great. Clooney looks like he just came out of the 50's. He reminded me of Cary Grant. Cate Blanchett is perfect as the femme fatale. I can't think of any better casting choices for an old school film noir than these two.

I also thought the story was engaging, even though it was sometimes confusing. I loved the way the information was dispersed, and the fact that the film changes perspectives, and at different points it's narrated by different characters. Some of the revelations in the plot were really sophisticated.

Making this film the way it was made, using old school techniques, lighting, camera lenses, etc. was a gutsy move. I applaud Soderbergh for his experimentation. And I thin it's a successful one - it really feels like a 50's film noir classic. I wouldn't say it's Soderbergh's best film, but it's certainly one of his his most unique ones, and a return to form after a string of failures. I highly recommend it.

American Dogme or an exercise in vanity

[Philby-3 · 6/10 · 11 March 2007]

George Clooney has a penchant for black and white movies – it's as if he wanted to be a contemporary of Clark Gable. Thus we have admired George's handsome features in "Failsafe" and "Good Night and Good Luck", not to mention the positively weird washed out colour of his Gulf war story "Three Kings". Stephen Soderberg on the other hand is a stylish director who likes to change styles. Here the story, from Joseph Kanon's historical thriller, is set in Berlin in 1945, and Soderberg decided to film it in a studio with the techniques of the day – black and white photography, period studio lighting, back projection, fixed focus lenses, 1:1.66 aspect ratio and all the rest. He probably even told the film crew to say "Ready when you are, Mr Soderberg". In the case of one scene at the end he has lifted the whole setting from "Casablanca", and we have some underground stuff reminiscent of "The Third Man".

Cate Blanchette as Lena the femme fatale is certainly channeling Marlene Dietrich but George Clooney is no Humphrey Bogart or Clark Gable. In fact his Jacob Geismer gets beaten up and/or given a bum steer by just about everyone he meets, starting with his driver the preposterous Corporal Tully (Tobey McGuire) who is not only shacked up with Geismer's pre-war love Lena but is on chatting terms with a Russian General. Fortunately Tully is eliminated fairly early on before the improbability of his character starts to bite.

Soderberg has re-created the feel of the defeated city, and the euphoria of the victors, who sip champagne in the ruins as the future of Europe is decided. The food queues of staving Germans contrast with the groaning food tables at the Potsdam Conference, which Geisman is supposed to be reporting on for the "New Republic". Instead he is scrambling through the rubble, looking for a man who is supposed to be dead, Lena's husband, a person of interest to both the American and Russian authorities.

Geisman you could describe as ineffectively noble – he has picked a fight with city hall which he cannot win. German scientists are going to work for the Americans come what may. Everyone else is either on the make or just trying to survive. By film noir standards, Geisman is a bit of a wuss.

As for Soderberg, he has produced a kind of American Dogme film -something more than a parody but something less than a tribute. The staging is contrived, the plot is decidedly clunky, the hero feeble, and some of the other parts unbelievable. The whole thing reminds me of a kid up a tree, about to fall out, yelling at his mother "Look what I can do Mummy". At least he keeps it to 90 minutes, like the period features he is referring to.

One Big Gimmick

[mrvirgo · 1/10 · 4 January 2007]

Once you get past the gimmick of black and white, about ten minutes into the film, I would say, the rest goes down hill. There is no explication as why characters act the way they do for most of the principal parts. Why for example is the Scottish bar keep so willing to do anything and everything for the Kate character? And, while we're at it, what is a Scot doing running a bar in post-war Berlin? Huh? What is Kate character's motivation for acting the way she does throughout the movie in terms of her husband? Practically everyone walks through his part and about an hour into the film, I was hoping I could make a fast exit but I was with friends. This movie goes absolutely no where, the plot is clichéd and trite and you would do better to feed the pigeons in the park for entertainment.