The Good German

U.S. Army correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney) gets caught in a web of intrigue involving ex-flame Lena (Cate Blanchett) in Steven Soderbergh's drama set in post-World War II Berlin. Lena's missing husband is hunted by U.S. and Russian military, and in desperation, she looks to Jake for a way out. Tension mounts as Jake discovers Lena's been keeping secrets and the black market dealings of his shady driver (Tobey Maguire) come into play.

Jackie and I both read the book and liked it. It's a good mystery, with the backdrop of Berlin a couple of months after VE day being ripe for intrigue, greed and murder. It's a tough story to tell in a movie, so they didn't.

The movie script decided to change the back story and character of Lena, her husband, Jake and the driver. At least the Allies still won WWII. To add a certain 40's era feel to the film, it's in black and white (looks great) and all the actors have the emotional attachment to each other and the story of paper dolls moving across the screen. Think high school stage play, not Casablanca. They lumped two different women from the book into one person in the film (Lena) and turned the husband from a believable rocket scientist who participated in starving Jews to a "Good German" who wanted to do the right thing by testifying against the other rocket scientists to cleanse the German soul. I hated this movie.

If you haven't read the book and still wonder if the movie stands on its own as a different film because it has a great cast, great look, and a famous director, don't bother. It still doesn't work. I had intended to only report on films I really liked, since I see lots of others that the rest of you might not care about one way or the other, but this one took me by surprise so much I wanted to post the warning. Did I mention, "don't see this movie?"