The Good German, 2006

Mostly, this is fun to just fall into and watch in a sort of contented trance. A reporter during World War II is in uniform for a special assignment in Berlin just weeks after it has surrendered. He encounters an old German flame, the alluring Cate Blanchett. It is all so familiar: a dead-on homage to "Casablanca" & "Chinatown," with a dash of post-war Neo-Realism, such as "Open City" or "Year Zero." The one totally original note is the whiney part played by Tobey Maguire. (I've liked him elsewhere, but this role is a bit miswritten.) I think the movie is good enough to stand on its own, but fans of classics will enjoy all the references---unless they are annoyed by it & see it as a only a shameless rip-off---such as "Chinatown"'s hero being named Jake, as is this one. Likewise, "there is no getting out of Berlin," just like the L.A. of the 1930s where the mixture of sunshine & corruption is endemic: "It's ALL Chinatown." So moral ambiguity & failing is a common theme, as is the semi-redemptive power of love, giving a twist to certain subplots of "Casablanca," including a shameless reenactment of its closing scene setting.They've cleverly designed it so the heroine gets to act out BOTH the Ingrid Bergman AND the Faye Dunaway endings---which are of course very different, but you'll see what I mean. First 15 minutes are self-conscious in their emulation of the oldies, but it soon finds a good dramatic pace, and rolls along nicely on its own for those not into the retro references---in which this is drenched. Clooney is very good, too. (Maybe audiences who don't have a touch of the cinephile in them will react differently to its high style, which may seem merely arch or even simply unrecognizably weird to them.) I don't know the book, so that wasn't an issue: lucky me---I got serious fun on its own merits. 3.09 _______PS Don't get upset at the screen format. It was deliberately made in the old nearly-square ratio. Or stretch it on a computer.

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Loved the visual, 1940's feel of the movie. The story kind of reminded me of 1949's The Third Man. The final revelation of the movie was anti-climatic. The movie could have been so much more, but the writing just wasn't there. A decent rent, but pass it if you're looking for something with substance.

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