The Counterfeiters (2007)
Average Rating: 7.7/10
Reviews Counted: 121
Fresh: 114 | Rotten: 7
The Counterfeiters is a gripping account of one prisoner's moral dilemma, superbly portrayed by Karl Markovics.
Average Rating: 7.8/10
Critic Reviews: 32
Fresh: 30 | Rotten: 2
The Counterfeiters is a gripping account of one prisoner's moral dilemma, superbly portrayed by Karl Markovics.
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Average Rating: 3.9/5
User Ratings: 20,488
Movie Info
Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky explores the moral corrosion of Nazi complicity with this tightly wound adaptation of Adolf Burger's fact-based book The Devil's Workshop. Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics) may be a talented artist at heart, but his desire for wealth has driven him to use his creativity for more nefarious means. Arrested by the police inspector Herzog (Devid Striesow) at the onset of World War II, Sorowitsch is sent to the notorious Mauthausen concentration camp. It's not long
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Cast
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Karl Markovics
Salomon Sorowitsch -
August Diehl
Adolf Burger -
Devid Striesow
Friedrich Herzog -
Martin Brambach
Holst -
Dolores Chaplin
Red-Haired Woman -
August Zirner
Dr. Klinger -
Marie Bäumer
Aglaia -
Veit Stuebner
Atze -
Sebastian Urzendowsky
Kolya -
Andreas Schmidt
Zilinsky -
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All Critics (122) | Top Critics (32) | Fresh (114) | Rotten (7) | DVD (10)
As writer-director Stefan Ruzowitzky shows, powerfully, affectingly, in The Counterfeiters, the privileges experienced by this small team of Jews and criminals came at a price.
Top CriticThis dark, absorbing thriller is not just a moral exercise in the awful choices faced by those determined to survive history's worst genocide. It invites us to imagine ourselves in the shoes of a not-quite-lovable rogue.
The Counterfeiters, written and directed by Stefan Ruzowitzky, is a morally challenging twist on the long and honorable tradition of forgery movies.
Based on a real-life Nazi operation, the film is a tense drama with performances that elevate the movie to the front rank of films set in concentration camps.
It's impossible not to respond to The Counterfeiters and the haunting questions it raises.
Deft and fascinating handling of a moral quandary in a Nazi concentration camp.
Sally Sorowitsch is the little gangster who outsmarts the big gangsters. What could be more gratifying than that?
2008's Oscar-winning foreign film is unquestionably good, a wholly absorbing and taut drama that is as engaging as it is powerful. But Oscar-worthy? There's room for debate.
It's a true story of the human condition, the Holocaust and history.
What would you do if your only chance of survival involved aiding the Nazi regime?
El resultado es notable, tanto como inquietante y hasta quizás incómoda reflexión sobre el instinto de supervivencia del ser humano, y también como pieza cinematográfica.
Ruzowitzky does a fine job of capturing the claustrophia of the setting, as well as conveying the moral complexity of these characters' choices
Markovics expertly projects every craven instinct and heartfelt yearning of the complex protagonist, making The Counterfeiters an experience as satisfying emotionally as intellectually. [Blu-Ray]
A bold study of unbearable moral ambiguity.
THE COUNTERFEITERS is an accurate procedural, just not a very engrossing or moving film.
This richly layered allegorical clash between a criminal and a communist, pits the urge for survival despite one's debasement, against defiance, collective rebellion and martyrdom - the very impulses that advance history, but at enormous cost.
Karl Markovics is exceptionally well cast. He's not wildly expressive, but his physicality -- a small frame, a nose that bends northwest due to events we can only imagine -- is enough to carry the film's ambiguities.
The winner of this year's Oscar for best foreign-language film puts devils, as well as angels, on the head of the pin.
Skilfully acted, written and directed, The Counterfeiters is a powerful and provocative work.
This Oscar-winning film ranks as the most unnerving, disturbing, true-life account yet of endurance under Nazi oppression.
The heart of the story is the horrible choice of survival, while helping your oppressors, or fighting them with sabotage and risking your life and others.
Gripping, but would have more impact if it had been staged -- like Paul Verhoeven's 'Black Book' -- in the straightforward manner of a classic Hollywood suspense film.
Ruzowitzky has some fine performers in the three key roles but there is a hint of unsubtlety in some of the other characters and situations. The obvious is rammed home.
This dark arty film also has some entertainment value due to Austrian actor Markovics and his ability to inhabit his complicated character in a convincing way.
Rarely has a film set the starkest of basic moral questions in such sharp-edged yet subtle relief. . . . like one of the master forger's brazenly passed-off copies--so bold, unflinching and brilliant that, to any eye, it's flawless.
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Movie: ID: 770676882 Title: The Counterfeiters Release Date: 2007-02-10 00:00:00.0 MPAA: 4 Status: 1
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Foreign Titles
- The Counterfeiters (Die Falscher) (DE)
- The Counterfeiters (UK)
