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THE GOOD GERMAN
Directed, Edited, & Camera by: Steven Soderbergh.
Produced by: Ben Cosgrove & Gregory Jacobs.
Written by Paul Attanasio, based on the novel by Joseph Kanon.
Music by: Thomas Newman.
Released by: Warner Brothers.
Country of Origin: USA. 105 min. Rated R.
With: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, Tony Curran, Leland Orser, Jack Thompson, Robin Weigert, & Ravil Isyanov.

The Good German is as much a genre exercise as last year’s Sin City, which pumped up its film noir world with the mind-set of a full-blooded action film with an R rating. Steven Soderbergh, though, tries for a subtler form of subversion. And on the technical side of things, it’s his most accomplished, eye-catching work since Traffic. This film is also rated R, and not inappropriately so, adding just the shot of realism the post-World War II Berlin environment needs.

Shooting in black and white and on the studio lot, Soderbergh wants this to be a fully old-fashioned dark romantic mystery, with a nod to 2006, with just a touch of obscenities and a touch of violence in some scenes. This here illustrates what’s strong and compelling about the picture, but one would have to look more so at the script than at Soderbergh for where The Good German goes wrong. It doesn’t become the train wreck that was Brian De Palma’s nourish The Black Dahlia (it’s never that disrespectful of the audience’s intelligence), yet like Sin City, I was almost too aware I was watching more an exercise in style than a fully compelling story with believable dialog.

One thing Soderbergh assuredly doesn’t get wrong is the casting, which aside from maybe one exception is one of his finest ensembles. George Clooney is in the quasi-Bogart role as American military journalist Jake Geismer, back in Berlin for the peace conference in Potsdam. His driver is Corporal Patrick Tully (Toby Maguire, the exception I mentioned), who has some shady dealings going on as one of the few who can go between the different zones set up in Berlin (American, German, Russian and British). He also has a girlfriend in a sometime-prostitute, Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), who was – or perhaps still is – married to Emile Brandt, a man with lots of information to spill regarding medical experiments performed in a concentration camp. Tully thinks he can sell Brandt off to one side or another via Lena, but winds up dead. This is after Tully has a run in with Jake at a bar. Lena is there as well, where one of those classic dolly-to-close-up shots reveal Lena and Jake have a certain history together.

From the looks of it, one thinks of, most obviously, Casablanca. Soderbergh probably even emulated, if not outright stole, some of that film’s shots, chiefly one where Blanchett’s Lena goes into the sewer system, or with the countless tilted and close-up shots. Soderbergh also has a wonderful production designer, Philip Messina, who probably took just a wee hint from Roberto Rossellini and, particularly, Germany Year Zero as well. The musical accompaniment is also spot-on, recalling Bernard Herrmann.

Clooney, with occasional charm, exudes a heedless determination as one saw last year in Syriana. Blanchett is at her cool best, hiding her demons with a Marlene Dietrich accent and a look that would give Garbo a run for her money. However, only Maguire doesn’t have it altogether, as his Peter Parker shtick is still in full swing here, though seemingly tougher as he tries to imitate an angry young man of ‘40’s Hollywood.

So why then would I hesitate to recommend it highly? It’s the script, really, where the story and the dialog are at odds with one another. There is a good story here being told, but it’s offered with dialog that doesn’t strike up the same interest and music one would hear in Casablanca and certainly not in Carol Reed’s adaptation of Graham Greene’s The Third Man. (And dark humor is sorely lacking, which was definitely not the case in Sin City). For all the passion that one can see in the craftsmanship, there’s also an inert quality, of the actors having to use their skills with a stilted script which lacks panache. Clearly though, Soderbergh is interested more in taking the audience back in time while still remaining somewhat in a present frame of mind. And in comparison to the last time Clooney and Soderbergh teamed up to try something “different,” their deadly dull remake of Solaris, I’ll take this homage any time. Jack Gattanella
December 15, 2006