If Stalin had walked around the corner and given George Clooney a high five, I wouldn't have been the least bit surprised.
Comment
12/14/06
The Good German (2006)
32
%
Tomatometer
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Reviews Counted:145
Fresh:47
Rotten:98
Average Rating:5/10
Consensus: Though Steven Soderbergh succeeds in emulating the glossy look of 1940s noirs, The Good German ultimately ends up as a self-conscious exercise in style that forgets to develop compelling characters.
Theatrical Release:09-03-2007
Synopsis: One of mainstream cinema's most tirelessly inventive directors, Steven Soderbergh delivers another big-budget stylistic experiment with THE GOOD GERMAN. This time around, Soderbergh's target is... [More]
Starring: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Beau Bridges, Tobey Maguire
Director: Steven Soderbergh
Reviews for The Good German
Steven Soderbergh attempts to resurrect the magic of classical Hollywood, principally by sucking out all the air, energy and pleasure from his own filmmaking.
12/14/06
Top CriticThe Good German is a prime example of a movie made by highly skilled and intelligent filmmakers that nevertheless seems misguided from the get-go.
12/14/06
More of a film-school exercise than a satisfactory cinematic experience, it's stylishly self-conscious, a stilted artifice, a mildly engrossing melodrama.
12/14/06
A few of Soderbergh’s movies have foundered on a similar ironic detachment. The singular exception, Out of Sight, floated along on sexual electricity and warm movie love, but The Good German feels passionless, throttled by technique.
12/14/06
Soderbergh shoots the picture using only equipment and standards available in the mid-40s. If that's not the kind of thing that puts wind in your sail, then move along.
12/14/06
If you can manage to reset your internal clock to the '40s, you might find enjoyment here; but that's a pretty big if.
12/14/06
Will prove more compelling as a technical study for Film Studies majors than as an entertainment for a general audience.
12/14/06
t's no secret that Steven Soderbergh is in love with film noir thrillers of the 1940s, but to use that style with "The Good German" proves a disservice to both the craftsmen of 60 years ago and Joseph Kanon, whose novel the film is based on.
12/14/06
It's hard to feel for the characters' fate when you're counting the ways in which The Good German rips off Casablanca.
12/14/06
On the meta level, Soderbergh has re-created not only the kind of story told in the 1940s, but the kind of technical production Hollywood gloried in more than half a century ago, too.
12/13/06
Where is Major Clark Gable now that we need him?
12/13/06
The Good German, Steven Soderbergh's film noir homage, is nearly perfect when it comes to style and tone, but it concentrates so single-mindedly on the mechanics of the narrative that it loses sight of its characters.
12/12/06
A bit jarring in its precision to capture the look and feel of '40s-'50s era movies ... but it succeeds on other levels.
12/12/06
The Good German is seriously deficient in the stars' star power and narrative excitement. The movie is lovingly framed, carefully lit, and fatally insipid.
12/12/06
It's a close call about which is worse, the acting of Blanchett and Clooney, the directing of Soderbergh, the writing of Attanasio, or the cinematography of Andrews.
12/11/06
Soderbergh, screenwriter Paul Attanasio and their colleagues get much of the mood and atmosphere down, but they fail -- or chose not to try -- to emulate the sense of wily playfulness that made old film-noir characters so rich and engaging.
12/11/06
Soderbergh's skill, intelligence and love for the genre are never in doubt. But, as it turns out, you can't play it again, Sam.
12/11/06
The result is a movie that is never quite amusing but never quite mordantly thought provoking either.
12/11/06
Top CriticSteven Soderbergh is usually an inspired chameleon, perfectly suiting his style to his content. But The Good German is an ambitious miss.
12/11/06
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