Every time I
make my list of movies coming out in the near future, I always forget The
Good
German. You
might be thinking, “How
could you forget a movie starring George Clooney, Cate Blanchett and
Tobey
Maguire?” Well,
once you have seen it,
you will understand how forgettable The
Good
German is, which is a
shame for a movie
that had great potential.
George
Clooney
stars as World War II war correspondent Jake Geismer, who has returned
to Berlin
just after the
defeat of the Germans, so he can cover the historic Potsdam Conference. However, he soon finds
himself trying to
piece together the mystery surrounding a young American
soldier’s murder, why
everyone in town seems to be looking for the mysterious Nazi Emil
Brandt, and
trying to reconnect with his wartime fling, Lena Brandt (Cate
Blanchett).
Making The
Good
German in a
1940’s style must have been a fun exercise for director
Steven
Soderbergh, cast and crew, but they had so much fun with the technical
side they
forgot to tell the story in a way the audience could follow it and
enjoy
it. The
Good
German
is a technical
marvel and great film school fodder as Soderbergh employs the feel and
style of
an old black and white film complete with credits at the beginning of
the
movie, melodramatic music, characters sitting in fake cars with a
screen behind
them showing the passing background and more (many directors wish they
could
fail by doing this well). Even
the
actors go old school for us in the way they read the lines and react,
but to
what end? Most
people who have seen the
movie compare it stylistically to Casablanca,
which is quite true, but it doesn’t have the same heart and
soul that great
movie did, and certainly it does not have the same compelling story. Much like a horror movie
clone, The
Good
German looks like Casablanca,
but seems to be missing something fundamental underneath it all, that
will
eventually lead to its horrible destruction.
Writer Paul
Attanasio (based on the novel by Joseph Kanon) rambles on and on and on
from
plot twist to plot twist, but the audience is buried beneath a mountain
of
information that doesn’t help us play along with solving the
mystery of Emil
Brandt. It’s
a very linear story with no
little clues thrown in for the audience.
Twists seem to come out of nowhere for twists sake,
leaving behind logic
and good storytelling in their wake.
Eventually,
we are left to wonder, is this movie about Jake?
Lena? Emil?
Something altogether different?
Plus,
we have lost track of all of the double crosses and hidden motives, so
it’s a
blur.
Also, we never
get a very good feel for why Jake cares so much for Lena. The
Good
German needs a great
flashback to
show us how much the two star-crossed, guilty lovers used to care for
each
other, not only to help us feel some drama and tension between them
during the
reunion, but to see who Lena was before she became the broken woman she
is in
this movie. No one
else is telling us
how much they were crazy for each other, so a quick scene to establish
they
know each other and had a thing wouldn’t hurt.
Clooney and
Blanchett are solid as they keep you interested even as the movie
spirals out
of control, and I think everyone who buys a ticket will be shocked by
Maguire’s
fantastic performance as a shifty soldier trying to profit as much as
he can
off the black market. Too
bad the rest
of the movie wasn’t as good as them, no matter how much of a daring experiment the whole thing was.
2 Waffles
(Out
Of 4)
The
Good German is
rated R for language, violence and some sexual content.
Copyright
2006 - WaffleMovies.com
