Review

Review Date: 28-January-07
Spoiler Rating: Medium
Juju Judgment: Just OK

The Good German (2006)

How fun to be Steven Soderbergh. With an Oscar on his shelf and George Clooney as his creative partner, the director with the varied résumé is probably one of few guys who could attempt a modern throwback of "Casablanca." Too bad his experiment goes awry. "The Good German" has all the hallmarks of a classic film: it's in black and white; it's set around World War II; it features telegraphic dialogue;* it uses an emotionally programmatic soundtrack; and it invites a viewer to relish the actors' faces. The plot involves proven themes of love, honor, murder, and history. The cast is capable of making the old seem new again. Yet the movie lacks a hook, such as a great question or character which could render it more than a passing curiosity.

Part of the problem is that "The Good German" is unremittingly gloomy. Perhaps this is to be expected, with Soderbergh and Clooney being political and "modern" usually meaning "cynical." The first 20 minutes are dominated by a fresh-faced GI in postwar Berlin (Tobey Maguire) who's a shithead with no redeeming qualities. Always on the lookout for a quick buck (or mark, ruble, whatever), this young devil assiduously works the black market and even tries to pimp his girlfriend Lena (Cate Blanchett) to a war correspondent whom he drives to the conference at Potsdam. He's barking up the wrong tree, however, since the reporter, Jake Geismer (Clooney), is the only person in Berlin with decency intact. It also turns out that Jake is Lena's still-devoted former lover and the unwitting catalyst to a deadly scheme.

After Maguire's cad leaves the picture (his one good deed), Jake finds himself in the middle of an intrigue involving Lena's supposedly dead husband and the emerging reality of the superpower. The implication is that war brings out the worst in everyone, be they individuals or governments. Victor or victim, nobody who crosses Jake's path has clean hands. Both the American colonel (Beau Bridges) and the Russian general (Ravil Isaynov) ignore the claims of the law and hard-earned peace to milk their triumph in anticipation of the next one. The man in charge of apprehending Nazi criminals (Leland Orser) appears to relish his job as a sport instead of a necessary enactment of justice. The German of the title gets his goodness from a desire to admit horrible crimes. Jake's flame Lena — whose darkened eyes look like pools which can never reflect light again — has been reduced to an organism bent on survival, to the detriment of her humanity. (I say "reduced" because one has to believe she was more vibrant when Jake used to know her. It's hard to imagine.) The only person in the city who hasn't been corrupted is the man who was a witness to, not a participant in, the hostilities. Although Clooney is solid as usual, Jake's mere existence isn't enough to go on. Diverging from most movies made nearer to WW II, he's not rewarded for his nobility. Let's hope it won't be a hallmark of our current cinema that heroes are lamentably naive.

*I.e., one character says something cloaked but seemingly innocuous to another, and the listener lets the speaker know that she or he is hip to all the underlying meaning. I've never heard anybody speak like this except in old movies.

Copyright © 2007 The Jujube (M. I. Kim). All rights reserved.