One of the major rules of the golden Hollywood filmmaking guidebook: CASABLANCA doesn’t need any remaking. It seemed as though Steven Soderbergh has failed to recognise this properly.


From plot, to dialogues, to cinematography of black-and-white monochromes, even to its movie poster, there are loads of similarity that even the most unsympathetic moviegoer could say that this looks reminiscent from the old time. However we do sympathise with Soderbergh for he wanted to revive the golden age of Hollywood where scripts turn into wondrous creations, but in his toil, the audience could feel a little deceived for what Soderbergh brings here is a shallow homage to the once fantastic era of moviemaking.


George Clooney stars as the main character, the American journalist Jake Geismer, who arrives in Germany to cover the Potsdam Conference with Truman, Churchill and other else, in an age of post-WWII in Berlin. However, the titular character THE GOOD GERMAN is not Clooney, of course he’s American. Geismer (Clooney) then meets Tully (a confused performance by Tobey Maguire), his driver who is also a military officer and also an illegal dealer, and also something that might make you become so confused in his nature of character. Tully is attached to Lena Brandt (this time, we’re thankful for Cate Blanchett’s excellent performance here) a prostitute, actually a widow of a former mathematician. But when Jake and Lena meet their eyes again, we, the audience know that they have a common past and they share an old love, which would revoke memories of CASABLANCA. As Jake sits down in the bar as he guzzles down liquor, reminiscing his past with Lena, it is inevitable to expect him to say “Of all the gin joints in the world, she strolls into mine.” Enough with CASABLANCA homage for Chrissake!


The plot is dull and how they developed it with conflicting loyalties with Jake not mesmerizingly trying to prove her connection with Lena, and Lena trying to hide a person who is actually THE GOOD GERMAN. Although we know that this good German had indeed done such a good thing, how they execute it is poorly done.


We revel, meanwhile, in the fact that Clooney and Blanchett knows how to fit their selves in the camera to look retro oldish style in the shades of black and white, but it’s Blanchett that shines here with her dramatic poses and her German-accented dialogues. Clooney is boring, unfortunately. But it’s Tobey Maguire who’s the greatest miscast in this film: his boyish nature doesn’t really reflect how sadistic his character is, thus resulting into a very unrealistic portrait of a conflicted sadist.


THE GOOD GERMAN may excel in cinematography as it effectively generates an old-school feel of the 40s and its soundtrack also reverberates well. It all looked like a vintage montage from an old television screen. But excelling in these departments doesn’t mean a movie does its job for a fair reason, because abominably speaking, it is tedious, unbalanced and indecisive in terms of storyline and characters. This movie is dull, and it is so annoying when everything refers to one of movie history’s greatest piece of cinema, CASABLANCA. Poorly done.




RATING: D