moviereview

GOOD

	A distracted professor of literature is wooed by the rising Nazi party when his paper on euthanasia is well recieved by certain interests.	score 3	moviereview rates films from 1 (unwatchable) to 5 (unmissable)
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Cast
Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Steven Mackintosh, Mark Strong, Jodie Whittaker

Director
Vincente Amorim

Screenwriter
John Wrathall

Country
UK / Germany

Rating / Running Time
M / 96 minutes

Australian Release
April 2009

Official Site

C.P. Taylor’s play about the good German who becomes a good Nazi officer has arrived at an unfortunate time. Swamped by bigger titles like Valkyrie, The Reader and the upcoming Defiance, Good is likely to be swept away into the margins. In part because of better positioned and therefore more brutal marketing machines, but also because Amorim’s valiant adaptation fails to turn its spark into a blazing film.

The ever-reliable Mortensen stars as John Halder, an academic of the 1930’s whose minor paper on euthanasia is viewed favourably by the Nazi regime. They bestow fortune upon him in exchange for public support, all of which seems innocent enough to the otherwise distracted family man. His trajectory within the party is diametrically opposed to society around him, in particular the providence of his best friend Maurice (Isaacs), a Jew. John fails to see any real threat, only an energised country. As his mistress points out: anything that makes people this happy can’t be bad, can it? Halder is about to find out.

While Amorim’s straightforward approach to Taylor’s thoughtful material is a reasonable match for Halder’s down-the-line character, it doesn’t offer much by way of dramatic grist. It’s fairly clear which way Halder is heading, a trajectory underscored by his relationship with Maurice. Good is a simple tale of blind naivety, which, as Mortensen has championed, lacks the catharsis one usually expects of Nazi-themed material. There are no howling scenes of biblical redemption, but there’s also precious little theatrical punch.

It’s a worthwhile and not uninteresting point that Amorim drives toward, even if it is one made very early in the film. The rest of the story has Halder playing catch-up with the audience, leaving Amorim a lot of time to get hardly anywhere. Good is, dare I say it, good, but as with Halder’s own standpoint, just not good enough.

// COLIN FRASER