Tagline: If war is hell, then what comes after?
Based on the novel by Joseph Kanon, “The Good German” takes place in the ruins of post-WWII Berlin, where U.S. Army war correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney) becomes embroiled with Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), a former lover whose missing husband is the object of a manhunt by both the American and Russian armies.
Intrigue mounts as Jake tries to uncover the secrets Lena may be hiding in her desperation to get herself and her husband out of Berlin. Tully (Tobey Maguire), a soldier in the American army motor pool assigned to drive Jake around Berlin, has black market connections that may be Lena’s way out — or lead them all into even darker territory.
Berlin, 1945.
U.S. war correspondent Jake Geismer (George Clooney) has just arrived to cover the upcoming Potsdam Peace Conference, where Allied leaders will meet to determine the fate of a vanquished Germany and a newly liberated Europe… and, in the process, carve up what’s left of any value for themselves. It’s not Jake’s first visit to Berlin. He once managed a news bureau here. He once fell in love here. But that seems a lifetime ago as he takes in the staggering devastation on the jeep ride from the airport to his hotel in the American zone.
Jake’s driver, Corporal Tully (Tobey Maguire), exudes small-town American charm-an eager, guileless, good-natured kid from the Midwest. In reality, he’s corrupt to the core, bartering anything and anyone, and playing all sides for the highest price. But that’s not unusual. Everyone in Berlin has a secret now. Everyone is working an angle to get what they need: money, power, survival… or just a way out.
Tully’s black market dealings don’t interest Jake, but Tully’s girlfriend does. She’s Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchett), Jake’s former love, although somehow, now, not quite the person he once knew. She has been irrevocably changed by the war, the hardship of life in this ruined city and the burden of her own secrets.
When Tully ends up in the Russian zone with 100,000 marks in his pocket and a bullet in his back, Jake finds himself drawn into the mystery of this murder, and the bigger mystery of why both the American and Russian authorities look the other way.
The deeper his investigation takes him, the more it leads him back to Lena. Jake discovers that it is nearly impossible to unearth the truth in a time and place where people are still reeling from the horrors of the war and desperate to salvage their humanity in the shadow of the often unbearable knowledge of what they did to survive.
Based on the novel by Joseph Kanon and directed by Steven Soderbergh, “The Good German” is a mystery, a romance and a thriller in the classic film noir tradition, its intimate human dramas playing out against the turbulence of political intrigue on a grand scale. Not only set in 1945, but crafted in the filmmaking techniques of that era, it blends a contemporary sensibility with the distinctive mood and style of movies that stirred the imaginations of post-war audiences.
In a story where people’s histories and motives are often shrouded in doubt, there is perhaps nothing better than a black-and-white palette to expose the shades of gray.
“You should never have come back to Berlin,” Lena tells Jake. It might be the only thing she tells him that is not a lie.
These production notes provided by Warner Bros. Pictures
The Good German
Starring: George Clooney, Cate Blanchett, Tobey Maguire, Beau Bridges, Tony Curran
Directed by: Steven Soderbergh
Screenplay by: Paul Attanasio
Release Date: December 15, 2006
MPAA Rating: R for language, violence and some sexual content.
Studio: Warner Bros. Pictures
Box Office Totals
mestic:$1,308,696 (22.1%)
Foreign: $4,606,212 (77.9%)
Total: $5,914,908 (Worldwide)