Rami Malek and Russell Crowe headline a retelling that blends history and psychology to mixed effect
By James Verniere/Boston Movie News
Two Academy Award winners go at it tooth and nail in “Nuremberg,” a re-telling of events depicted in the Academy Award-winning 1961 Stanley Kramer film “Judgment At Nuremberg” starring Spencer Tracy, Marlene Dietrich, Judy Garland and more. In “ Nuremberg,” Army Lt. Col. Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek), a shrink, is assigned to “treat” Hermann Goring (a stout Russell Crowe), former Reichmarschall of Nazi Germany, the second in command to Adolf Hitler. Goring, along with his wife Edda (Fleur Bremmer) and young daughter, is captured in his chauffeured limousine by American G.I.s and transferred to Nuremberg, where the unprecedented plan is to try him and several others in the Nazi High Command for crimes against humanity. It’s going to be “the Greatest Show on Earth.”
Goring’s strategy is to claim that he had no knowledge of the death camps and that he only knew the places where Jews were sent by the SS as “work camps.” Anyone reminded of the immortal Sgt. Hans Schultz (Austrian-born American actor John Banner) of “Hogan’s Heroes,” and his Platonic refrain, “I know nothing, not a thing,” is not alone (and old as rocks). If Goring and his motley crew of war criminal compatriots are not declared guilty as charged and sentenced to hanging by the jury, Kelley’s superiors: the blustery Col. Burton C. Andrus (John Slattery), the brilliant Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon), who is angling for a Chief Justice appointment, and his British brandy-swilling cohort Sir David Maxwell-Fyfe (a reliably great Richard E. Grant) are going to be very unhappy.
Directed and co-written by James Vanderbilt (“Truth”), “Nuremberg,” which is based on a book by Jack El-Hai, mixes horrifying archival footage with its newly-shot fictional scenes. But it is hard to take “Nuremberg” seriously as a definitive film about the aftermath of World War II (the action begins with a grizzled G.I. taking a leak on a swastika). What the film does argue fiercely is that there are Nazis everywhere, not just in WWII-era Germany or in a courtroom in “Nuremberg,” but here and now.
Plus, it is great fun to watch Malek and Crowe duke it out. Crowe is about twice the size of his co-star and resembles a troll being interviewed by a hobbit. In addition to being physically imposing. Crowe boasts a prodigious vocal instrument, which he uses like a musician (which he is). Young British actor Leo Woodall of “White Lotus” is also a standout as an American soldier serving as a German translator, who has a secret that complicates his relationship with Goring and his fellow soldiers.
The other Nazi captives believe that Kelley is a Jew because of his profession (he is not), and a couple of them berate him. Goring rises above such sentiments. He likes Kelley because Kelley is intelligent and sensitive, someone the great and mighty Goring can talk to. Andrus and Jackson expect Kelley to supply them with intelligence to use against Goring at the trial. Those are Kelley’s orders. He must obey. But he also agrees to deliver letters secretly to Goring’s beautiful wife and adorable daughter and becomes enchanted by them both. His job is “to tell the world what the Nazis did.”
Malek is a fascinating actor. As those who first encountered him on TV’s “Mr. Robot” know, he is easy to underestimate, in part due to his slight physical presence. But he is soulful and a wily opponent, and his Kelley lets Goring’s pride get the better of him again and again. One of the captives, Julius Streicher (Dieter Reisle), the “high priest of antisemitism,” seems completely insane. Rudolph Hess (Andreas Pietschmann) feigns amnesia. Colin Hanks is amusingly unlikable as a rival psychiatrist brought in to spy on Kelley. Goring praises Hitler with the words, “He made us feel German, again,” a neat trick for an Austrian. Goring blames Himmler for the “Final Solution.” If people can be prosecuted for “unjust and malicious wars,” where does it stop? Do we prosecute some, but not all? Someone refers to the death camps as “extermination factories.” We see piles of rotted corpses. “I am the book. You are merely a footnote,” Goring informs Kelley. The ”book” has a surprise ending.
‘Nuremberg’
Rating: PG-13 for violent content involving the Holocaust, strong disturbing images, suicide, some language, smoking and brief drug content.
Cast: Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Richard E. Grant, Michael Shannon
Director: James Vanderbilt
Writers: Vanderbilt, Jack El-Hai
Running time: 148 minutes
Where to watch: In theaters
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