Editor’s Note: Freeline Media’s movie critic, Mike Fried, is back with his thoughts on Nuremberg.

By MIKE FRIED

NUREMBERG
****

“Just because a man is your ally, doesn’t mean that he is on your side” are the words spoken by Hermann Göring to his U.S. Army psychiatrist. 

The war is over. The Nazi High Command is either dead or has been captured. As the Americans spearhead a global effort to try the Nazis in a tribunal open to the world, the Americans send a psychiatrist named Douglas Kelley to evaluate the potential defendants and whether they are fit to stand trial, especially Hermann Göring, with whom he forms a complex bond and with whom he engages in a dangerous game of cat and mouse. 

This movie soars because of its three main actors. Russell Crowe gives one of his best high profile performances as Göring and he plays him as if he is the most evil person but he is aware of this and he knows that he is smarter than anyone around him. Gaining weight to play the Nazi second in command, Crowe commands the screen, whether through rage or amiability, but it really doesn’t matter.  He is Crowe.

Rami Malek is absolutely terrific as Kelley who drowns in his association with Hermann. He is smart and educated but even he realizes that he may be in over his head dealing with Göring,  

But the most enigmatic character in the piece is Justice Robert Jackson, played by Michael Shannon who will go to any length to get his tribunal off the ground, including threatening the Pope! The three of them are the sturdy foundation that the movie needs. But I certainly hope that this will be the movie that will allow the long overdue Shannon to be in contention again for a Supporting Actor Oscar. 

Don’t get me wrong, the supporting cast is also terrific. Colin Hanks is fine as a second psychiatrist sent to aid (read: check up on) Kelley, as a harbinger of Göring’s words; John Slattery is solid as the Colonel in charge of the Nuremberg prisoners; and Richard E. Grant is underused as British Judge Maxwell-Fyfe, but is always a welcome presence. But it is Leo Woodall as Sergeant Howie Triest, another real-life character, who delivers a wallop in the third act with a secret of his own. In fact, the best part of the script is when Triest tells Kelley his backstory.

But it’s the three main actors that do this film justice. There’s a scene where Göring and Kelley are playing cards in his cell and the Nazi starts psychoanalyzing the Doctor in a nice turn of the tables. 

The direction is precise, the script is terrific and the location shooting in Budapest looks great. The courtroom scenes are great and actually include 6 minutes from George Stevens and John Ford’s 52 minute film which documented the atrocities. And when Kelley tells someone “I’m just a shrink,” it has haunting echoes of “I was only following orders.”  

But this movie has in some fashion or another been told several times before so that the biggest difference is the acting. And the acting is aces — especially, the cross-examination of Göring during the trials. 

However, overall, this is an Awards Bait film that is better than the 2000 television miniseries starring Alec Baldwin but is, in no way, comparable to the haunting legacy of Stanley Kramer’s magnificent Judgment at Nuremburg.

As a lawyer, do I think that the defendants got their day in court? No, I do not. As a human being, I think they got what they deserved.  

And the final scenes ring true today!! 

WATCH IT

Michael Fried has no formal training in movies, except having watched over 26,000+ movies — if not more — in his 60-plus years on this planet, starting with Goldfinger as his first cinema experience. He knows what he likes and he knows what he doesn’t like, and it’s quite often different from the conventional wisdom. He knows that the best franchise is Godzilla and he loves action movies and comedies. He has not been nominated for any awards except some boring insurance awards which has no applicability to movies (with the possible exceptions of Billy Wilder’s Double Indemnity and John Cassavettes’ Big Trouble). He is part of a team that won the 1980 SUNY Albany Trivia content by correctly guessing the question, “Who played the president of Klopstockia in Million Dollar Legs?” So he has that going for him, which is nice.

Contact Mike at moviemike3@yahoo.com and mike.fried@yahoo.com.