Movie Review - The Good German

This is my 500th post.

I rented The Good German this weekend. I was expecting it to be kind of a letdown, because I read the book when the film was in theaters and the film is nothing like the book. You can just look at the trailer and tell a lot of the story is altered. Some of the same themes are there but the title character is different and the plot is all jumbled up.

Even if you haven't read the book the plot is still somewhat muddied, and you feel like the pacing is a bit too fast for the film. I suspect key scenes have ended up on the cutting room floor, because by the time everything unravels at the end you kind of wonder what just happened and why. Maybe I need to watch the film again.

I was really disappointed with Tobey Maguire's acting in this. It really seemed to me he was playing a version of Peter Parker in some black & white version of Spiderman 3. The character isn't the same, but the acting is. It's just such a blot on this noir homage.

I really loved Cate Blanchett's character in this film. She just plays the sort of tough, sensitive survivor that I think all women can really identify with. She steals every scene she's in.

I was somewhat unhappy with the ending because I felt George Clooney's character should have done something else. He doesn't because it conflicts with his moral compass, but you really have to question that.

In the sort of extreme situation that was Germany in WWII, anything you did that was not in line with the 3rd Reich would have you shot. So I think people chose to survive. When you choose between survival and getting shot or worse, sent to a concentration camp, what would you choose? Seriously?

Call me a bad person, but I think I would choose to survive. Not that I would be the first to jump on the "let's do evil" bandwagon, and not that I wouldn't have my ghosts that haunt me (because I would), but that I value life.

Or maybe I'm just not a person of integrity.