A pre-WW2 drama charting the inexorable rise of the Nazis in Germany, and an intellectual German everyman who becomes seduced by an SS paycheck.
Viggo Mortensen plays John Halder. Halder is decent individual with family problems – a neurotic wife, two demanding children and a mother suffering from senile dementia. A German literature professor in the 1930s, he explores his personal circumstances in a novel advocating compassionate euthanasia. When the book is unexpectedly enlisted by powerful political figures in support of government propaganda, Halder finds his career rising. Yet with Halder’s change in fortune, his seemingly inconsequential decisions potentially jeopardize the people in his life.
I apologise, we feel bad, but there's no trailer available. ~Ed.
Good? Barely adequate more like. Brazilian director Amorim's film is only notable for providing another showcase for Mortensen's (The Lord of the Rings) total commitment to a role. Although his meek and mild professor is like the SS Version of Harry Enfield's Tim Nice But Dim, you can see him strain every sinew and furrow every brow to breathe some life into an essentially moribund character.
Unfortunately, everything else about this adaptation of C P Taylor's acclaimed 1981 play is nothing short of a mess. Tonally the film is all over the place, with a bizarre fantastical musical element, an overuse of soft focus and Isaac's (Harry Potter) cynically wisecracking Jewish wideboy not really gelling with the film's dark subject matter. And despite the movie's slim running time, John Wrathall's script also seems unsure if the main focus should be euthanasia, extra-marital affairs or the natural of evil. Perhaps they should be heeded the words of Isaacs character: “I’m a Jew, you’re a Nazi. End of Story”, and jettisoned all the subplots.
The Valkyrie - everyone speaks with an English accent - approach to the story also doesn't help with authenticity, while Simon Lacey's score is overwrought in all the wrong places. Although almost redeemed by a bold ending, Good lacks the gripping action of Black Book or the compelling storyline of The Counterfeiters to be a truly memorable Nazi collaboration movie.
By James Croot, Flicks.co.nz
A strong cast and good starting material doesn't manage to save this unsuccessful adaptation.
Paced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, Good may find boxoffice returns slow to build but the film's aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded.
Regrettably, the long-delayed adaptation from director Vicente Amorim and screenwriter John Wrathall gets crushed by the weight of trying to be something more; it's really just the story of a rather ordinary but disappointing man. The filmmakers reach for metaphor and allegory, but it comes at the expense of an emotional connection.
In Good, the anemic screen adaptation of C. P. Taylor's play about a respectable "good German" who passively acquiesces to Hitler's agenda, Viggo Mortensen, miscast and ineptly directed by Vicente Amorim, plays John Halder, a liberal, mild-mannered literature professor who becomes a Nazi.
It's a pitiful ending to a story that wants to be a parable about how the well-spoken end up doing the unspeakable, but ends up being that most remarkable of things, an utterly forgettable Holocaust film.
We've been told the NZ release date for this flick is Thursday, 11th Jun 2009.
Release date: June 11th 2009.
We haven't received times for this movie in this location yet. However these are updated as cinemas announce them, so check back soon. Hopefully the lovely cinemas in your location will choose to play it shortly. ~Ed.
