Review of The Good German (2006) by Chrissy P — 25 Jul 2009

Points for style--from a stylistic standpoint it was a pretty-good-nice-try... though the daylight scenes were harshly bright and never seemed to be filtered right or something.

The witty dialogue and retorts of movies from the 40s have been replaced with F-this and F'in F-that. Tobey Maguire's character was particularly guilty of that--and though he was killed a half hour into the movie, his acting was bad enough to ruin the entire movie for me.

Plus, it just didn't really even make all that much sense plot-wise; It succeeded in being mysterious, but not in a good way. And you really couldn't care a lick for any of the characters at any point, except maybe the pawn shop guy who'd gone through medical experimentation in a concentration camp.

The final Casablanca rip-off scene was just painful.

Watch Hitchcock's "Foreign Correspondent" if you want a good film about a war correspondent. And, of course, stick with "Casablanca" if you want to watch a Casablanca-esque movie.