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List Price: $19.98 | | Label: Warner Home Video
Salesrank: 15937
Released: May 22, 2007 |
| Our Price: Too low to display |
| Used Price: $1.37 |
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MPAA Rating: R (Restricted)
Media: DVD |
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Editorial Review:
Who knows what American journalist Jake Geismer (George Clooney) expected to find in postwar Berlin? Peace, maybe. Or at least a story. But certainly not Lena (Cate Blanchett), his beautiful, embittered one-time love. And not the trail of secrecy and deception that leads from Lena to the scheming young corporal (Tobey Maguire) who's her new lover...and to a murder no one seems interested in solving. Except Jake. Steven Soderbergh directs three of today's top talents in this zigzag thriller that's both an atmospheric homage to 1940s filmmaking and a deft modern film noir. The Good German is "haunting and hypnotic, it's pure moviegoing bliss" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).
Description of The Good German:
Despite its flaws, The Good German is a welcome gift for every film lover who laments that "they don't make 'em like they used to." Steven Soderbergh's affectionate, knowing tribute to the black-and-white melodramas of Hollywood's golden age may lack the emotional depth and romantic passion of Michael Curtiz's Casablanca--the 1946 classic it intentionally emulates--but as Soderbergh approximates Curtiz's studio style, he delivers a shimmering, shadowy reminder that movies can be enjoyed for the sheer pleasure of their craftsmanship. Once again serving as his own cinematographer (credited as "Peter Andrews"), Soderbergh went to great lengths to technically and aesthetically re-create the look and feel of a Curtiz production, and Joseph Kanon's source novel (adapted by Quiz Show screenwriter Paul Attanasio) provides a twisting plot set around the historical Potsdam conference in post-World War II Germany. An American military journalist, Capt. Jake Geismer (George Clooney) is in rubble-strewn Berlin to cover the event, and is quickly drawn into a murder plot involving his appointed driver (Tobey Maguire), an old flame-turned-wartime prostitute (Cate Blanchett) and her missing husband, a scientist who possesses pivotal secrets coveted by Americans and Russians in a pre-Cold War bid for power.
Violence, sexual content, and salty dialogue make it clear that this R-rated drama is a brashly contemporary homage to films of a bygone era, and not a slavish attempt to copy the past. This yields mixed results in terms of the film's overall appeal; it's gorgeous to look at, but the plot and performances exist in a vacuum, and the entire film feels oddly disengaged from any sense of genuine human emotion. It's probably fair to say that Soderbergh had more fun making the film than most people will have watching it. And yet, as Clooney's character is repeatedly beaten and deceived on his path to cynical enlightenment, The Good German has many qualities that make it recommendable, not the least being the pleasure of following a talented director as he indulges his penchant for bold experimentation. --Jeff Shannon
The Good German Reviews:
Triumph of style over substance 
2009-12-21 - I guess Steven Soderburgh got this great idea...to make a modern film noir, set it in post war Berlin, and shoot it in black and white just like the original noir films. Then he hired some first rate actors... but somehow...it didn't work. If he had worked harder at the script and less at the look, it might have been wonderful.
Yes, it is visually splendid. If that is enough for him, then he has succeeded. However, if he wanted to make a really good motion picture, he failed.
I'm not sure exactly where he went wrong but I failed to care about any of the principles. And when you can't engage the interest of the audience enough to drag them through all of the meananderings of the grim and grisly plot, then why bother?
The "hero" whose name I've already forgotten although I just watched this, played by George Clooney, never managed to engage me. I think a different actor might have made the film work. Clooney is handsome and can be very charming in an old-fashioned, Cary Grant way. (Maybe Soderburgh should make something in the style of the wonderful, slick and glamorous Grant films, casting Clooney....that might be a hoot.) He has no ability to convey any emotion facially and after while, who cares? He is supposed to be so enamored of this woman that he risks life and limb over and over but somehow he never manages to show us that.
Cate Blanchett is very beautiful here and her extraordinary cheek bones play wonderfully in the intense black and white lighting. She is a fine actress and although I was tempted at times to make cheap remarks about her attempting to imitate Marlene Dietrich, I do think that she did the best anyone could with this silly plot. She manages to look stunning all the time which is quite a feat for someone who has been on the brink of starvation for years.
I haven't read the book this was taken from so I don't know exactly what went wrong in re-writing the script. But it failed to show just what motivated the Clooney character to keep after Lena (Blanchett). He got beat up time after time and his driver, (Toby Maguire) was killed because of his involvement with her...She was mysterious and elusive--perhaps he was just a man who needed punishment, but the story makes us believe he is the virtuous hero, not just a jerk.
Well, after sitting through all of this, I really didn't care who got on the plane at the end and who didn't. When a film that tries so hard leaves viewers (I'm not the only one) not caring, there's something very wrong.
It looks good, though.
Where is the suspense? 
2009-12-19 - The Good German includes some clever b&w cinematography and makes effective use of contemporary footage, but all in all the movie is a mess. The incredibly bad editing of what is primarily an artsy film results in a fractured and barely comprehensible story-line. The sophomoric moralizing and slightly veiled anti-American message (we wanted to obtain German rocket technology regardless of the immorality of the German scientists who embodied it) further detracts from this particular piece of vanity. Every aspect of the movie pails in comparison to the Third Man and Casablanca. Unforgivably it totally lacks suspense - though the genre and the story cry out for it. In fact, the only thing that the movie has going for it - the powerful depiction of the utter physical and social destruction of Berlin - and that might make it interesting as part of a HS History or German class is wrecked by one gratuitous sex scene. The acting is OK but strained - everybody tries too hard to act like they did in the 40s and 50s.
A fake 40's movie in black and white?
2009-09-13 - This movie kind of struck me as an anti-Casablanca:Casablanca
Instead of everybody being good and noble, we have the American
behaving at times like Nazis in this film.
This story is about a 1946 Berlin where the people are living in the ruins
and the GI's are kings.
The jeep driver thinks he has hit real pay dirt
when it turns out his German girl friend -prostitute
is married to someone both the Russians and Americans want.
But the newspaper reporter he is driving also remembers her
from before the war. Lena is a case of survival at any cost
and pretty much hates herself worse than anyone else could,
yet men makes fools of themselves over her.
The acting is pretty good and the movie almost convinces you
that this was the 40's again.
Even the end is the same as Casablanca with an airplane leaving,
but what is between sort makes you wonder who really won that war?
Interesting, But Ultimately Confusing And Dirty (For A Black-And-White), Movie. Good Acting, Though.
2009-09-07 - Steven Soderbergh's "Homage" to black-and-white movies is interesting, in that it has an intriguing plot which unfortunately gets muddled in the middle and ultimately goes nowhere. Also, it was very dirty for a black-and-white movie. Sex, nudity, language and graphic violence are thrown in to make this movie appealing for a modern audience. What a stupid ploy to cater to the degenerate tastes of filmgoers. Try watching "Casablanca," "Double Indemnity," "King Kong" or any film made in the 1930's, 1940's or 1950's to see how black-and-white movies were made and what they're about. Very good plots...and NO sex, nudity, language or graphic violence. (And all these movies made money too...and some even were nominated for, and sometimes won, Academy Awards; and people still watch these beautiful movies nowadays). Don't waste your time with this movie. "A good cast does not a good movie make." All too true with "Scarface" and this movie. Rated R, but it should not have been made in the first place.
Offbeat thriller experiment is worth a look
2009-08-18 - The story in "The Good German" is a little dry and long, but if you have any predisposition to enjoy a layered tale of wartime intrigue, you'll make it through okay. The real selling point, though, is the wonderful production design and gorgeous black & white photography, the latter seen in generous widescreen glory (after the opening credits, which tease you into thinking you'll be forced to watch the movie in the boxy aspect ratio of actual 1940's movies). Ultimately, what's, well... good about "The Good German" is that it doesn't settle for being a well-produced pastiche of old wartime movies, but says a few compelling things about the ways otherwise decent people are willing to behave in situations when they feel their backs are against the wall. Problematic in some ways, "The Good German" is absolutely recommended at least as a rental. The DVD looks and sounds great, though there are no extra features.
