The Good German (2006)

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General		Extras
Category	Drama	None
Rating
Year Of Production	2006
Running Time	103:14
RSDL / Flipper	RSDL (53:21)	Cast & Crew
Start Up	Language Select Then Menu
Region Coding	4	Directed By	Steven Soderbergh
Studio Distributor	Virtual Studios Warner Home Video	Starring	Jack Thompson John Roeder George Clooney Tobey Maguire Cate Blanchett Dominic Comperatore Dave Power Tony Curran Ravil Isyanov J. Paul Boehmer Igor Korosec Boris Kievsky Vladimir Kulikov
Case	Amaray-Opaque
RPI	?	Music	Thomas Newman

    I would have thought that any film starring George Clooney and Cate Blanchett should be expected to make more at the US box office than just over $1 million, however, this one is obviously an exception to that premise. I suppose the fact that it is in black and white would reduce its multiplex appeal but regardless this film should have been seen by a wider audience as it is certainly worth watching.

    The Good German is a tribute to the great films of the 1940s with some obvious nods to Casablanca and film noir (even the poster is a direct tribute to Casablanca). It was made using very similar techniques to those films with period lighting (giving a harsher lighting than we are used to in modern films), a shooting schedule confined to studio backlots, period lenses and most obviously black and white cinematography. The film was directed by Stephen Soderbergh who is certainly making a career of very interesting projects (some of which work better than others).

    The plot (based on a novel) involves a US War Correspondent, Capt. Jake Geisner (George Clooney) who arrives in Berlin in July 1945, just after the war has ended in Europe and in the lead up to the Potsdam Conference. He is there to cover the conference. On arrival he is met by Cpl. Tully (Tobey Maguire) who is to be his driver. Tully shows his hand early on in their relationship by stealing his wallet. Tully is a fairly unlikable character who is a violent schemer, out to make as much money on the black market as he can. He is involved in a relationship with Lena (Cate Blanchett), a German woman with a mysterious past. Tully has promised to help her escape Germany. In an interesting coincidence, Geisner knew and had an affair with Lena when he lived in Berlin before the war. The Americans and the Russians are all looking for someone called Emil Brandt and while he is trying to profit from this, Tully winds up dead, shot in the chest. Despite being ordered by the military to leave it alone, Jake begins to investigate when he realises Lena is involved.

    The story is very intriguing with lots of twists and turns. Clooney and Blanchett work perfectly in a 1940s setting and they are probably the two current Hollywood stars who would have worked best at the time. Maguire, on the other hand, seems a little miscast and his character is a bit over the top in violence, sexuality and language to fit into the 1940s style. In fact, the level of sex and discussion of sex does not gel with the style being attempted, generally speaking. The code in the 1940s would have precluded it. To my mind, despite trying to use shadows like the greatest black and white films do, it falls somewhat short in this department. Sometimes the use of shadows is excellent and other times it just seems a bit off, especially when compared to the best use of shadows such as Hitchcock films or Laura. The film is also graced with an excellent Oscar-nominated score by Thomas Newman.

    Despite the misgivings I have mentioned here I certainly think this film is worth seeing especially for fans of 1940s cinema or the leads. Recommended.

Video

    The video quality is good but is not at the theatrical aspect ratio. I believe that some of the 'issues' with the transfer are more likely to be a result of the filmmakers intention rather than functions of the transfer.

    The feature is presented in a 1.33:1 aspect ratio, non-16x9 enhanced. The film was shown theatrically at 1.66:1 and I believe that this transfer is a full frame rather than pan & scan effort. I have decided not to deduct one star from the video rating for this difference as I do not know whether the director's intention was to replicate the academy ratio which would have been used for most films made in the 1940s. It may well have been that in order for the film to be shown in cinemas these days, some sort of widescreen ratio was required, hence 1.66:1. I understand that in order to show it in most cinemas it was actually 1.85:1 with black bars included on either side.

    The picture was reasonably clear and sharp throughout, with no evidence of low level noise. The harsh lighting used and the bright outdoor scenes seem to have resulted in some light colour bleeding but this may well be intentional as is the harsh lighting. Shadow detail is poor but this is almost certainly by design. There is some light grain around which looks to me like MPEG grain. A good example of this is on George Clooney's face at 89:25.

    The black and white was very crisp and clear with excellent variation in black, white and shades of grey.

    There were no other noticeable artefacts besides those I have already mentioned.

    There are five sets of subtitles on this disc. There is an automatic subtitle stream which provides captions which would have been burnt into the original theatrical prints, providing background and locations. The others are English, English for the Hearing Impaired, Arabic & Hebrew. The English subtitles were clear and easy to read but a little summarised from the spoken word.

    The layer change occurs at 53:21 and is not noticeable.
    

Video Ratings Summary

Sharpness
Shadow Detail
Colour
Grain/Pixelization
Film-To-Video Artefacts
Film Artefacts
Overall

Audio

    The audio quality is very good but doesn't exactly test your home theatre.

    This DVD contains an English Dolby Digital 5.1 soundtrack encoded at 384 Kb/s. Most sound is confined to the centre speaker with the exception of the score.

    Dialogue was mostly clear and easy to understand and there was no problem with audio sync.

    The score of this film by Thomas Newman is wonderful, thoroughly deserving of its Oscar nomination.

    The surround speakers were not put to much use.

     The subwoofer adds bass to the music but little else.

Audio Ratings Summary

Dialogue
Audio Sync
Clicks/Pops/Dropouts
Surround Channel Use
Subwoofer
Overall

    None, nothing, zilch.

Menu

    The menu design is very simple allowing for set-up and playing the film.

    The Region 4 version of this disc misses out on;

• Spanish & French 5.1 dubs
• English 2.0 surround track
• French & Spanish subtitles

    The Region 1 version of this disc misses out on;

• Hebrew & Arabic subtitles

    On this basis lets just call it a draw.

    The video quality is good but not at its theatrical ratio.

    The audio quality is very good.

    No extras.

Video
Audio
Extras
Plot
Overall