Often told with the subtlety of a sledgehammer, James Vanderbilt’s Nuremberg is uncomplicated yet occasionally effective, feeling like a throwback to mid-budget Hollywood historical dramas of the 1990s and early 2000s, with a starry cast and handsome production values.

Based on Jack El-Hai’s nonfiction 2013 book, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, the courtroom drama recounts the true story of U.S. Army psychiatrist Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek, in one of his better performances), who was assigned to evaluate 22 Nazi leaders imprisoned in Nuremberg after the war. This includes Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe, German accent and all, in one of his most complex turns in years), Hitler’s former second in command. Kelley’s assignment is twofold: keeping Göring from committing suicide and, unbeknownst to him at first, aiding American prosecutor Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) and his British counterpart David Maxwell-Fyfe (Richard E. Grant) in assessing Göring’s mental state and gathering evidence for the trial.

Initially, Kelley has a degree of empathy for Göring, who proves to be coy and slyly manipulative. At first, he feigns his understanding of English with Sgt. Howie Triest (Leo Woodall), who acts as an intermediary translator, but the two men soon begin to converse in English with one another. Göring also pretends not to remember anything from the war and distances himself from atrocities. When Kelley meets his wife, Emmy (Lotte Verbeek), and young daughter, Edda (Fleur Bremmer), to relay letters, the gesture deepens Göring’s trust. Perhaps, too, Göring—who is sometimes a couple of steps ahead of Kelley—knows his wife and daughter will make Kelley feel more sympathetic for them and his situation. It isn’t until Kelley witnesses the harrowing footage of the concentration camps (much of which is shown unflinchingly here), seen for the first time during the trial, that Kelley begins to fully grasp the depth of Göring’s guilt.

Defying leaders who wanted immediate executions, Jackson insists on staging the trials on the world stage, exposing the regime for their crimes with a decisive legal conclusion—not as something that could be swept under the rug. Though the stakes are high, this narrative thread of the trial’s setup lacks energy, despite Shannon’s typically committed, but refreshingly restrained performance. Grant, who comes through with dynamite strength in the trial’s final moments of cross-examining Göring, reaffirms his reliable screen presence.

The film is lavishly shot by Dariusz Wolski, known for his work on some of Ridley Scott’s similarly overstuffed dramas Napoleon, All the Money in the World, and House of Gucci, among them. A nighttime exchange between Kelley and Jackson amid the abandoned ruins of former Nazi rallying grounds is hauntingly lit and one of the most striking scenes.

The film’s epic scale sometimes works against it, overcomplicating what could have been leaner and more dynamic. A subplot of a hinted romance between Kelley and a journalist is poorly developed with a breezy, out-of-place tone, and probably could have been cut. The editing sometimes relies on some groan-worthy, cheap transitions. (One scene ends with a newsreel with a post-war declaration about having “no problems,” followed by another that opens with someone announcing, “We have a problem.”)

Still, what lingers the most, besides the psychological interplay between Kelley and Göring, and the searing footage from the camps, is the former’s story. The movie left this viewer wanting to read its source material. Kelley later wrote a book, 22 Cells in Nuremberg, and ultimately suffered from alcoholism and depression, committing suicide by taking potassium cyanide in 1958, which was Göring’s method as well. Sometimes the most effective way to encapsulate monumental historical events is to zero in on a few individuals. In Nuremberg‘s focus on Kelley and Göring, a compelling, unusual portrait emerges.