Director Steven Soderbergh and actor George Clooney have worked together six times, including this film and "Ocean's 13." Some of the films are big budget successes like "Ocean's 11," while others are guilty pleasures like "Out of Sight." Some just don't live up to expectations. "The Good German," while an interesting concept of trying to recapture old Hollywood style filmmaking, is not able to recapture the magic of cinema gone by. Filmed in black and white and using only camera techniques available in the '40s, Soderbergh's grand experiment can’t hold up to close scrutiny.
The story takes place in post-World War II Berlin during the peace process between Churchill, Truman, and Stalin. Capt. Jake Geismer (Clooney) is a journalist who returns to a post-war Berlin rife with corruption and partitioned into zones ruled separately by the Americans, Soviets, French and British. Tully (Tobey Maguire, "Spiderman 3") is his seemingly cheery motor pool driver who is actually a nasty little fellow actively involved, while off duty, in the underworld. Tully's girlfriend is a German woman named Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett, "Babel") who is trying to get out of Berlin. She has a dark past stemming from before the war, but her charm and beauty captivate the men in her life. Murder, betrayal, political subterfuge and Clooney getting beaten up a lot ensue.
While I was expecting the slowly evolving movie of yesteryear with an emphasis more on acting and dialogue than action, I felt the story and the performers weren't up to the task to successfully pull this experiment off. With plenty of close-ups showing the actors’ every expression, Clooney seemed uncomfortable under such close camerawork, and at times he didn't seem to know what to do with himself. Despite the olden days’ storyline and style, profanity and overt sexuality were actively portrayed in the movie. This gratuitousness felt unnecessary, and it took me out of the classic movie feel I thought Soderbergh was going for.
Cate Blanchett seemed most comfortable in her role as the damaged German dame, easily performing a thick accent. She closely resembled old-movie actresses like Lauren Bacall and Ingrid Bergman both in mannerism and expressions.
Initially, it seemed Soderbergh was trying too hard to make a "Casablanca" knock-off, but he appears to move away from the comparison to that silver screen classic later in the film. Without the snappy dialogue and riveting performance of a Humphrey Bogart, the film was never really in the same league. Instead, what you see on screen is a story that never completely holds itself together and a main character that seems adrift instead of being at the film’s center.
A few interesting ideas are expressed during the story. The war crimes prosecutor in the film, who is an old friend of Jake's, must decide which citizens should be charged or exonerated. With the excellent Nazi recordkeeping of torture and brutality, perpetrators are easy to come by, but where do you draw the line? Questions of whether citizens are guilty by association because they didn’t stop the carnage abound. Blanchett's character shows us the other side of this question, depicting the lengths people had to go to simply stay alive. Can people be held accountable for their basic human instinct of survival?
While these few quandaries saved an otherwise total loss, a student of film or sociology would be more entertained than the rest of us.
Rated R for language, violence and sexual content.