The Good German

When I discovered that Steven Soderbergh, creator of such films as Traffic, Ocean's Eleven, and sex, lies, and videotape, was migrating back to the director's chair—particularly for a film outside of the Ocean's Eleven franchise—I grew excited rather quickly! That new film was The Good German, and at first glance (i.e., the long-ago description on IMDb, coupled with the trailer), it appeared to be very compelling! A wondrously good trait for an established director like Soderbergh.

But then I saw the lukewarm reception it was receiving prior to its DVD release (I missed it during its brief theatrical run), and I became a little unsettled, largely because I had been anticipating a new Soderbergh film (again, outside the Ocean's Eleven franchise) for some time—and when you're anticipating something this much, naturally you don't want to be disappointed. So when I finally sat down to watch The Good German, I kept my fingers crossed.

The Good German stars George Clooney in the role of Jake Geismar, an American Army journalist who comes to Berlin to cover the Potsdam Conference just weeks after the collapse of the Third Reich in World War II. He's met by Patrick Tully (Tobey Maguire), who's to serve as his driver for the duration of Geismar's stay in Berlin—but we see right away that Tully is a pretty shady character, particularly when he steals Geismar's wallet shortly after meeting him. And as the story unfolds, we discover that Tully is actually a war profiteer who regularly crosses into the Russian-controlled part of Berlin to do black market dealings with his Russian counterparts. Plus, he's recently entered into a relationship with Lena Brandt (a barely recognizable Cate Blanchett), who's not only Geismar's ex-girlfriend but who's also married to Emile Brandt—a hotly-pursued German scientist . . . who just so happens to be missing. In fact, Tully is mistaken for the missing Emile a few times—until Tully ends up dead one morning.

With a starting point like this, you'd think an edge-of-your-seat Steven Soderbergh thriller would follow, but sadly it never quite came to fruition as such, largely due to several factors—the major one being the focus of style over plot.

The filmic style of The Good German catches the viewer's attention right from the get-go. Opening with the old-school Warner Brothers logo followed by the 1940's style credits flow, you can sense right away that Soderbergh intends to pay tribute to the noir films of the 1940s—because The Good German is filmed entirely by old-school techniques (boom mikes, back-lot sets, etc.). Thus, we don't see the film in widescreen but rather windowbox framing that later gives way to full-screen framing. This initially caught me off-guard, but later began to make sense, since widescreen framing wasn't as common in the 1940s as it is now. (Correct me if I'm wrong, but Casablanca is a full-screen print, yes?) The retro filming style was impressive, but two major factors made the style lose ground:

1. It featured modern-day scenarios, like graphic sex scenes or f-bombs being dropped helter-skelter. While these traits are more commonplace nowadays, they look brazenly out of place in the context of a black-and-white 1940s film noir. Stylistically, sex would have been more implied, and language would have been kept to an extreme minimum—and I use the word "extreme" because it was a huge deal just to say the line, "Frankly, my dear, I don't give a damn" in 1939's Gone With the Wind. That's how taboo language was back then.
2. It featured modern actors, who looked noticeably out of place in a 1940s noir setting. Maybe I'm just used to seeing George Clooney, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, or Leland Orser in modern films, but somehow it took away from the ambiance to have them show up in this setting. (To be fully honest, even seeing George Clooney in Good Night, and Good Luck was a stretch.) Cate Blanchett is the one exception, though, and I don't know how she did it, but she actually blended in perfectly with the 1940s filmic style. I partially wonder if it was a combination of her acting and the makeup, because she played the 1940s femme fatale in much the same way Ingrid Bergman or Marlene Dietrich did years before.

Just a thought, but to really go the extra mile in filming this like a '40s noir, the end credits should have been one single screen listing all the characters and their actors set to a few dramatic bars of score, rather than the modern 5-minute rolling of the full cast and crew.

The one element I did enjoy, though, was the shared narration—i.e., different characters narrating the story at different times. Usually, it's just one character providing voiceover narration, but here we have all three leads do voiceover. That was a nice touch! And since we're on the subject of acting . . . I have to be honest, I felt it was just standard-fare acting, with the actors merely playing themselves—with the notable exception of Cate Blanchett, as I said earlier. But the Jake Geismar that George Clooney offers up isn't that different from any of his other acting jobs over the years. Tobey Maguire doesn't offer much substance, either. The only thing we get from his rendition of Tully is that he's a slimy war profiteer only interested in lining his own pockets. Plus, he wasn't even in the film for very long! (Tully turns up dead after maybe half an hour.) I can't even say that Leland Orser added anything significant to the mix—even though it was a nice touch to see him play a character who wasn't hyper or edgy (think of his cameo in Se7en).

The plot had lots of problems as well, because the film left lots of questions unanswered. Plus, the story often hinted at a deeper, more sinister plot with important questions being asked, but ultimately the audience is left hanging because these plot points and questions are never revisited. Plus, the ending literally screamed Casablanca. Given the nostalgic noir style of the film, I'm betting Soderbergh intended this as an homage—but somehow, I don't think many filmgoers will see it that way.

As much as I want to like this film, I can't give The Good German more than a 5. Given the elements that went into making The Good German, particularly from as good a director as Soderbergh, this was a film that had great potential. It's just unfortunate that it didn't come together in the end to fully realize that potential.