Review of Good (2008) by David B — 12 Jul 2009

Not Good. There's an interesting idea at the heart of this movie, about good people desperately rationalising their own horrific actions to assuage themselves of guilt and culpability, but it's not handled very well.

With the exception of Jason Isaac's Jewish psychiatrist, most of the characters, including Mortensen's protagonist, are fairly loathsome, unfortunately negating the message of the movie. Moreover, the dialogue feels horribly modern.

Characters utter statements that are filled with meaning to an audience that knows what happened next, but it all feels too artificial. Good bombards the audience with issues rather than telling them a story.

A final scene in a concentration camp is fairly moving, but this feeling again stems from our prior knowledge of the subject, rather than anything we are seeing on the screen. Ultimately, the most authentic parts of the film were the haircuts.