The Good German

But while he gets the structure, Soderbergh8217;s film lacks the spirit. While Casablanca too had its web of plots and intrigues, and involved the entire spectrum of politics from the Vichy Regime and the Nazis to the Resistance Movement and the Americans, you stayed with the characters. Each one of them was finely etched, each had quirks and each had a distinguished personality that defines them even now.

But The Good German, set at the time of the Potsdam Conference8212;when the Allied Powers met to redraw the post-War world near Berlin8212;is confusing and, at times, purely self-indulgent. Shot in black and white, lounging in the shadows, lingering on Blanchett8217;s high cheekbones, and then suddenly shocking you with its brutal depiction of sexual violence, the film doesn8217;t have time to clarify the plot or to draw out the characters.

The person with the most promise, the naiuml;ve Tully who is about the only one who thinks he has figured out the war, and how to use it to his best advantage, is bumped off 20 minutes into the film. It8217;s to the credit of Maguire that in that little time, he manages to make Tully, a character who is a complete contrast to his usual good, sincere boy roles, someone we would like to see the back off. He is also the only one who seems to be playing his character naturally rather than being in awe of it.

That8217;s where Clooney and Blanchett falter. Playing the two former lovers Jake and Lena, the two great-looking and great actors seem to be, surprisingly, trying to be their 8216;40s counterparts. Worse, they share little of Bogart and Bergman8217;s chemistry.

Jake keeps getting thrashed on Lena8217;s account by men who always jump out of the shadows, and you keep wondering why he is still walking around unwatched in Berlin the next moment. She keeps venturing out past curfew hours in areas sharply demarcated as Russian and American zones, and you wonder why all the Allied Powers can8217;t track as to where she goes or what she does.

Of course this is because Soderbergh wants to keep the suspense going as long as he can. What is Lena hiding? Why was Tully, who was her lover, murdered? Why are both the Russians and the Americans interested in Lena8217;s husband Emil Brandt, who was apparently just some secretary before the War? And above it all, the biggest question of them all: Who is a Nazi?

For those of us who haven8217;t seen Casablanca but who like Soderbergh8217;s work, The Good German would be a disappointment. But those of us who have would feel doubly cheated: To reiterate a point, there8217;s hardly a film more worth paying a tribute to, and there are hardly directors around like Soderbergh willing to take that risk.