The Good German

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What’s the Story?

In 1945 Germany, reporter Capt. Jake Gesimar (George Clooney) arrives in Germany to cover the Potsdam Peace Conference. He immediately clashes with his younger driver, Corporal Tully (Tobey Maguire). Where Jake is principled, if cynical, Tully is at once naïve and slick, and involved in criminal activities. The men's differences come to a head over a prostitute named Lena (Cate Blanchett) who's currently Tully's girlfriend and was formerly Jake's lover. Soon Jake is embroiled in a murder case involving the insidious Russian General Sikorsky (Ravil Isaynov) and covered up by crafty U.S. Colonel Muller (Beau Bridges). Jack is helped and stymied by Congressman Breimer (Jack Thompson) and war crimes prosecutor Bernie Teitel (Leland Orser). Bernie is an old friend of Jake's and doesn't trust him, but is invested enough in tracking down the now-scurrying-away Nazis that he makes deals with whomever will help him do it, be it Jake or the U.S. military.

Is It Any Good?

The Good German is Steven Soderbergh's latest expansion of stylistic and thematic boundaries. Shot in black and white, the movie focuses on the moral and political dilemmas emerging from the Potsdam Peace Conference, where, an epigraph asserts, Harry Truman, Winston Churchill, and Josef Stalin gathered to "draw the postwar map."

Lena and Jake's passionate past -- as well as a scene at a rainy airport -- evokes Rick and Ilsa in Casablanca. But Jake's efforts to do the right thing are repeatedly complicated by others' greed and desire for vengeance. This thoughtful, complex film ends with a Stars & Stripes headline announcing that the United States has just dropped the atomic bomb on Japan. Even as WWII comes to a horrific end, the Cold War is already in motion.