| | | "If War is Hell, Then What Comes After?"
Features: DVD, Pan and Scan (TV Format), English, French, Spanish, Subtitled
Who knows what American journalist Jake Geismer (George Clooney) expected to find in postwar Berlin? Peace, maybe. Or at least a story. But certainly not Lena (Cate Blanchett), his beautiful, embittered one-time love. And not the trail of secrecy and deception that leads from Lena to the scheming young corporal (Tobey Maguire) who's her new lover...and to a murder no one seems interested in solving. Except Jake. Steven Soderbergh directs three of today's top talents in this zigzag thriller that's both an atmospheric homage to 1940s filmmaking and a deft modern film noir. The Good German is "haunting and hypnotic, it's pure moviegoing bliss" (Peter Travers, Rolling Stone).
"Sumptuous, clever and cold." Ella Taylor, L.A. Weekly
"...the tension between the visual style and the adult story makes the movie pretty engrossing...an R-rated "Casablanca."" J.R. Jones, Chicago Reader
"...Clooney and especially Blanchett give solid performances...in vintage Hollywood style." Lou Lumenick, New York Post
"This is Soderbergh's show, and a haunting and hypnotic show it is." Peter Travers, Rolling Stone
"...[Soderbergh's] risk-taking pays fascinating dividends." Scott Tobias, The Onion A.V. Club
Editor's Note
IN THEATERS DECEMBER 8, 2006This adaptation of Joseph Kanon's bestselling novel, directed by Steven Soderbergh, stars George Clooney as an American journalist who returns to Berlin at the close of World War II to search for his pre-war mistress (Cate Blanchett).
| Features | Audio: English Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound, Dolby Digital Stereo | | Audio: French, Spanish Dolby Digital 5.1 Surround Sound | | Dubbed: French, Spanish | | Interactive Menus | | Scene Selection | | Subtitles: English, French, Spanish |
| Entertainment Reviews
 | The Good German - DVD By: Chris Barsanti - filmcritic.com DVD Reviews Published on: 5/11/2007 5:12 PM | |
Those who will hate The Good German will do so not because of its time-appropriate look and technique (more on that in a moment), but because it wants to be a wartime drama stripped of romance -- those movie stars may be standing in the rain next to a plane with its engines running, but this isn't Casablanca. Paul Attanasio's bruiser of a script (based on Joseph Kanon's novel) has all the hallmarks of a classy WWII drama. World-weary reporter Jake Geismer (George Clooney) shows up in Berlin two months after the collapse of the Reich to cover the Potsdam Peace Conference, at which the three Allied powers will carve up Europe like so much pie. ...read the full review |
| The Good German - DVD By: Alexandra Calamari - Cinema Blend DVD Reviews Published on: 5/25/2007 11:47 PM | | The Good German begins promisingly enough in a typical noir style - the inciting death launches the characters into a mystery they can't escape and the shadowy femme fatale constantly undermines the hero. But as the storyline becomes increasingly complicated, it becomes nearly impossible to follow, worsened by the useless narration that switches in perspective from Tully, to Jake to Lena. ...read the full review |
| Technical Info
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Release Information
| | Studio: Warner |
| Release Date: 11/10/2009 |
| Running Time: 108 minutes |
| Original Release Date: 2006 | | Catalog ID: 73667 | | UPC: 00012569736672 | | Number of Discs: 1 |
Audio & Video
| | Original Language: English | | Available Audio Tracks: English, Spanish Dubbed, French, Quebecois Dubbed | | Available Subtitles: English, Spanish, French, Quebecois | | Video: B&W |
Aspect Ratio | | Widescreen/Standard 1.66:1/1.33:1 [4:3] |
| Cast & Crew | Beau Bridges | | Cate Blanchett | | George Clooney | | Tobey Maguire | | Ben Cosgrove - Producer | | Doug J. Meerdink - Art Director | | Frederic W. Brost - Executive Producer | | Joseph Kanon - Based On Novel By | | Paul Attanasio - Screenplay | | Philip Messina - Production Designer | | Steven Soderbergh - Director | | Steven Soderbergh - Cinematographer | | Steven Soderbergh - Editor | | Thomas Newman - Original Music By |
| Awards |
Nominee (2007) | | | Oscar, Thomas Newman, Best Achievement in Music Written for Motion Pictures, Original Score |
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| | Professional Reviews | Rolling Stone
3.5 stars out of 5 -- "[T]he movie works on its own, with a gleam of seductive corruption....The actors all come up with aces....It's pure moviegoing bliss." 12/14/2006 p.134Entertainment Weekly
"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." -- Grade: B 12/22/2006 p.62 Sight and Sound
"It vividly recreates the soundstage artifice of Warner Bros' wartime noirs -- replete with melodramatic dynamics but minus the restrictive gentility of 1940s Hollywood." 03/01/2007 p.59-60 Total Film
4 stars out of 5 -- "[W]ith Blanchett channelling Marlene Dietrich in an extraordinary performance....Clooney reins it in, playing it with suitably blunt bemusement..." 04/01/2007 p.32 Uncut
4 stars out of 5 -- "Steven Soderbergh continues his genre-cruising career with this stylised b/w tribute to '40s noir..." 12/01/2007 p.137 FilmCritic.com 8 of 10
Those who will hate The Good German will do so not because of its time-appropriate look and technique (more on that in a moment), but because it wants to be a wartime drama stripped of romance -- those movie stars may be standing in the rain next to a plane with its engines running, but this isn't Casablanca...Romance, murder, corruption, the looming mood of great historical events, The Good German has all the hallmarks of a well-meaning, by-the-books Hollywood period drama. But director Steven Soderbergh is after something else...Thick with hypocrisy and corruption, the world of The Good German is more that of Graham Greene and a wearied Europe than that of the sun-dazed California dream factory who would continue to mine happy fake fantasies out of the war for decades later. For this it will be hated, though wrongly. Noirs this good don't come along every day, or even every year. - Chris Barsanti
Variety 7 of 10
A post-World War II drama set amid the rubble of a bombed-out Berlin, this black-and-white backlot production endeavors to recapture the bitter romanticism of such '40s studio artifacts as "Casablanca" and "A Foreign Affair" while adding contemporary frankness. But doing what came naturally to Hollywood craftsmen 60 years ago is clearly harder than it appeared, as Soderbergh can't duplicate the look and feel of the old-fashioned entertainments he means to honor..."The Good German" has little of the luster, sheen and pictorial nuance of a top-flight Hollywood picture of the old school...Genuine pleasure is generated by Philip Messina's production design, which has made a convincing mess of numerous standing backlot street sets to convey a ruined Berlin...Thomas Newman's voluptuous score, which draws attention to itself at times, but nonetheless achieves discordant moods and levels of complexity rare in film music these days. - Todd McCarthy
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