The Good German
I really, really wanted to like this new feature film from director Steven Soderbergh, partially because it stars the luminous Cate Blanchett, and more importantly because it strives to be an uber-faithful homage to my favourite film style, noir . Set in a ravaged Berlin in 1945, before hostilities have ended with Japan but after Hitler's ignominious death, The Good German employs a balanced blend of archival footage and newly-shot scenes to tell a story about guilt, love and double-crossing. It stars George Clooney as journalist-turned-honorary-Captain Jake Geismer, nominally in Berlin to cover the Potsdam conference , where Churchill, Stalin and Roosevelt met for the last time as allies, to divide post-war Europe among themselves. Really, he is back in town to look for his lost love, Lena Brandt (an effortlessly world-weary Blanchett). Disembarking at the airport with Congressman Breimer (an almost unrecognisable Jack Thompson) Jake is picked up by his driver, the unscrupulous, ...