The Good German (2006)
Average Rating: 5/10
Reviews Counted: 147
Fresh: 48 | Rotten: 99
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.
Average Rating: 5/10
Critic Reviews: 45
Fresh: 13 | Rotten: 32
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.
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Average Rating: 2.9/5
User Ratings: 36,319
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Movie Info
A U.S. Army war correspondent is drawn into a deadly mystery in post-war Berlin as he seeks out his wartime mistress in this adaptation of author Joseph Kanon's best-selling novel. The war is over, and Jake Geismar (George Clooney) is an American journalist assigned the task of covering the peace in Berlin -- but he was once lovers with a mysterious woman named Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett). Lena is a lady with many secrets to hide, however, and now that the fighting has ceased, she has every
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Cast
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George Clooney
Jake Geismer -
Cate Blanchett
Lena Brandt -
Tobey Maguire
Tully -
Beau Bridges
Colonel Muller -
Tony Curran
Danny -
Leland Orser
Bernie Teitel -
Jack Thompson
Congressman Breimer -
Robin Weigert
Hannelore -
Ravil Isyanov
General Sikorsky -
Christian Oliver
Emile Brandt -
Dave Power
Lieutenant Schaeffer -
Don Pugsley
Gunther -
Dominic Comperatore
Levi -
John Roeder
General -
J. Paul Boehmer
British Press Aide -
Igor Korosec
Russian Soldier -
Boris Kievsky
Russian Soldier -
Vladimir Kulikov
Russian Soldier -
Yevgeniy Narovlyanskiy
Russian Soldier -
Aleksandr Sountsov
Russian Soldier -
Dean Misch
German Boy -
Justin Misch
German Boy -
Justin Pugsley
German Boy -
Tom Cummins
British Interviewer -
Brandon Keener
Clerk -
Gianfranco L'Amore Tordi
The Butcher -
David Willis
Franz Bettmann
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The Good German Trailer & Photos
All Critics (153) | Top Critics (47) | Fresh (49) | Rotten (105) | DVD (21)
Why emphasise flaws in a film of such overall ambition and expertise?
Top CriticThis cast almost makes The Good German watchable. It's just that their screenwriter and director don't do them any favors.
There's a line between homage and mimicry, and Soderbergh has crossed it.
We get no heroes, not even flawed ones. Clooney, our marquee man, chases through numbing plot contortions only because of his lust for Lena. By the time The Good German ended, I had barely a clue if the good ones had lived or died.
The Good German is a movie wonk's triumph and no one else's. Soderbergh gets the visuals right but not the clean storytelling line of classic cinema, nor the iconic characters or moral certainty of the oldies.
I have to admire an ostensibly nostalgic entertainment that so concertedly undermines the romanticism of wartime Hollywood.
An utterly gaseous film
A beautifully flawed experiment, "The Good German" is an entertaining if unbalanced war drama that places modern cinema mores on a classic style of American film when the Hayes code would never have allowed such overt sexual reality.
The Good German is the bad movie. Except for the ambience -- the look of the film -- it stumbles awkwardly on every level.
Clooney stars in thoughtful, complex noir mystery.
No matter that it's based on a book, the movie is more about how the reality of the time was seen through the lens of a Michael Curtiz while he was filming "Casablanca".
Lo más interesante de esta película es el rescate casi arqueológico que realiza el director Steven Soderbergh en claro homenaje al cine del Hollywood de los '40 (...)
Hollywood vi%u0161e nije u stanju praviti velike filmove
The final verdict on this movie is that for all its attempts to replicate the great movies of the 1940s, it fails miserably.
While admirable as an example of directorial innovation and homage, The Good German fails to connect on a basic emotional level.
...by the time this one was over, Soderbergh had impressed me more his by his ability to mimic an old film than by his ability to tell a coherent story.
A homage to the romantic noir mysteries of the 1940s, a tribute that tries hard but, alas, misses the mark.
Flat noir homage.
Audience Reviews for The Good German
Super Reviewer
Super Reviewer
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- Lena Brandt: He's a good German.
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