“You’ve been wrong every step of the way Jake, why stop now?” There’s a good chance you’ll feel the same negotiating this magnificent noir homage that could, in all regards bar language, have been filmed sixty years ago. High contrast black and white, reduced ratio and clunky props are matched by vicious stunt work and Thomas Newman’s pounding score. It would have starred Bogart, Bacall and Stewart (though it’s unlikely Stewart would say fuck any more than Bogart would call anyone a cunt).  Jake (Bogart/Clooney) reports for AP and returns to Berlin to cover the 1945 Peace Accord. It’s a thin cover - he’s more interested in finding his doomed ex-lover Lena (Bacall/Blanchett). Yet she is driving her own agenda – Lena wants out and doesn’t care how she gets there. Once married to a ranking SS officer, she puts the fatal in femme fatale as GI Tully (Stewart/Maguire) discovers perilously late. Yet he’s no innocent - his body turns up with 50,000 in cash that pushes Jake knee-deep in trouble.

Everyone is working an angle and no one is working harder than Soderbergh who juggles a dozen strands to keep his audience dutifully informed and off-balance. In recreating sumptuous period, character sometimes gives way to mechanics though this minor weakness sits back-seat to the film’s formidable strengths. Paramount is Blanchett recalling a doomed Marlene Detriech. From note-perfect accent to the merest flick of a weary eyelid, everything about her disenchanted performance is exceptional. And as collusion and moral degradation play out against an evolving political landscape, this heavy-duty Casablanca builds inexorably toward a thrilling climax. Right to the last scene it’s hard to tell where The Good German will go. Hell, most of the time it’s hard to tell who the good German is!

// COLIN FRASER