The Good German is an interesting experiment on the part of George Clooney and Steven Soderbergh, an experiment that, like Solaris, just does not pay off at all. This time, Soderbergh has tried to recreate the classic 30s and 40s noir films, drawing particularly heavily on Casablanca and The Third Man. Shot in black and white, and even in 1.66.1 rather than today's traditional widescreen, the film is an attempt to recapture an old film-making magic, but unfortunately the magic is long gone, and as a result The Good German comes across as simply trying too hard to bring back the 40s style. Further, in the attempt to fully realise and recreate the traditional noir style, substance is sacrificed, resulting in a rather thin and uninteresting plot. The characters are dull 1-dimensional and unengaging, to the extant that it is hard to care what happens to any of them. It is an attempt to make a 40s noir as they would have been made without the Hayes Code's restrictions on sex, swearing and violence - but unfortunately this lack of restriction makes little difference to the film.
There is little discernible 'plot' over a third into the film, but what plot there is(for want of a better term) revolves around a great deal of intrigue about a murder and a missing former SS man in Berlin during the Potsdam conference. Clooney is an American journalist who encounters an old flame (Blanchett) who is now accompanied by Clooney's driver - played by Tobey Maguire. While Clooney and Blanchett are rather bland, Maguire at least injects a mild amount of interest by playing against type as a rather vile driver in the army. The movie thus suffers greatly when he is killed off early. By the time the plot 'intrigue' started to resolve itself, I was past caring why people were searching for this man (who is also Blanchett's husband) and whether or not they found him. The film sacrifices substance for style - but unfortunately the style isn't exactly on the money. It all looks stylish enough in black and white, Soderbergh heavily uses shadow, to the extent that it is comparable to Joel Schumacher's overuse of dry ice and smoke in his 80s films.
The final scene is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of the end of Casablanca, but rather than lending the film credibility it only serves to underline the deficiencies of the Good German in trying to measure up to the 1940s classic. Blanchett is no Bergman and Clooney sure isn't Humphrey Bogart! Overall the film starts out with an interesting aim but in the end comes over as a load of pretentious and uninteresting twaddle, trying to capture (or steal) the magic from a movie style long gone. Casablanca is timeless. This is shameless. And a real shame.
There is little discernible 'plot' over a third into the film, but what plot there is(for want of a better term) revolves around a great deal of intrigue about a murder and a missing former SS man in Berlin during the Potsdam conference. Clooney is an American journalist who encounters an old flame (Blanchett) who is now accompanied by Clooney's driver - played by Tobey Maguire. While Clooney and Blanchett are rather bland, Maguire at least injects a mild amount of interest by playing against type as a rather vile driver in the army. The movie thus suffers greatly when he is killed off early. By the time the plot 'intrigue' started to resolve itself, I was past caring why people were searching for this man (who is also Blanchett's husband) and whether or not they found him. The film sacrifices substance for style - but unfortunately the style isn't exactly on the money. It all looks stylish enough in black and white, Soderbergh heavily uses shadow, to the extent that it is comparable to Joel Schumacher's overuse of dry ice and smoke in his 80s films.
The final scene is almost a shot-for-shot recreation of the end of Casablanca, but rather than lending the film credibility it only serves to underline the deficiencies of the Good German in trying to measure up to the 1940s classic. Blanchett is no Bergman and Clooney sure isn't Humphrey Bogart! Overall the film starts out with an interesting aim but in the end comes over as a load of pretentious and uninteresting twaddle, trying to capture (or steal) the magic from a movie style long gone. Casablanca is timeless. This is shameless. And a real shame.