Reviewed by Alexander Bisley

AH, THOSE cheekbones. Scrupulously lit and elegantly shot in dappled chiaroscuro, Lena Brandt’s face appeals. Brandt (Cate Blanchett) is a complicated, comely Berlin prostitute. Cynical war correspondent Jake Geismar (George Clooney), the Humphrey Bogart to Blanchett’s Ingrid Bergman, comes back to Berlin ostensibly to cover World War Two’s climactic Potsdam Conference. It’s the girl he’s after. She’s fallen on hard times since he’s been gone, and is now tied up with a young louse Tully (Toby Maguire). Among Berlin’s rubble, various American and Russian (“Why not? They took all the bullets”) factions are carving up the action. Nazi rocket scientists like Lena’s husband are up the top of the list. Scriptwriter Paul Attanasio (Donnie Brasco) works from Joseph Kanon’s novel. The pacing’s pokey, but Attanasio crafts a dose of snappy, cynical one-liners, finessed by Clooney’s delivery. “Millions of people didn’t disappear because the elves came out at night.”

The Good German is Soderbergh’s homage to classics like The Third Man and Casablanca, particularly the genre you might term noirish war. (Reportedly he only used technology available to 1940s filmmakers.) Since Heaven through to recent work in Babel and Notes on a Scandal, the lissome, winsome Blanchett has had an extraordinary run. After her splendiferous Katherine Hepburn tribute in The Aviator, Blanchett homages Marlene Dietrich, Greta Garbo and Bergman. You’ll have often seen her and Clooney better, but they’re still good. Clooney’s Syriana is a meaty, piquant canvas about the dirty, sweltering nexus of Islamic terrorism, big business and oil. His Good Night, and Good Luck brilliantly probes the anaesthetising corporatisation of the media. The Good German is not disinterested in the fog of war, but has nothing like their immediate urgency. Lots of things work, but as a whole this cheeky movie doesn’t quite. It’s not without its charms, albeit more interesting than involving.

» Illustration by Lyndon Barrois.