Steven Soderbergh attempts to resurrect the magic of classical Hollywood, principally by sucking out all the air, energy and pleasure from his own filmmaking.
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12/14/06
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The Good German (2006)
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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:Dec 15, 2006 Limited
Box Office: $891,721
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
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Reviews for The Good German
The 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
Top CriticWhere is Major Clark Gable now that we need him?
12/13/06
Top CriticThe 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
Top CriticA 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
Top CriticIt'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
Top CriticSoderbergh'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
Top CriticThe 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
Top Critic[Soderbergh] has such a gusto for movie history that he all but forgets that the films to which he pays homage were not themselves exercises in pure style.
12/11/06
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