List Price: $19.98You Pay Only: $17.49 You Save: $2.49 (12%)Prices subject to change.
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Aspect Ratio: 1.33:1
Audience Rating: R (Restricted)
Binding: DVD
Brand: Warner Brothers
EAN: 0012569736672
Format: AC-3, Black & White, Closed-captioned, Color, Dolby, Dubbed, DVD-Video, Subtitled, NTSC
Label: Warner Home Video
Manufacturer: Warner Home Video
Number Of Items: 1
Publisher: Warner Home Video
Region Code: 1
Release Date: May 22, 2007
Running Time: 108 minutes
Sales Rank: 22742
Studio: Warner Home Video
Theatrical Release Date: 2006
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Editorial Review:
Product Description:
Who knows what American journalist Jake Geismer (George Clooney) expected to find in postwar Berlin? Peace maybe. Or at least a story. But certainly not Lena (Cate Blanchett) his beautiful embittered one-time love. And not the trail of secrecy and deception that leads from Lena to the scheming young corporal (Tobey Maguire) who's her new lover...and to a murder no one seems interested in solving. Except Jake. Steven Soderbergh directs three of today's top talents in this zigzag thriller that's both an atmospheric homage to 1940s filmmaking and a deft modern film noir. The Good German is 'haunting and hypnotic it's pure moviegoing bliss' (Peter Travers Rolling Stone).Running Time: 108 min.Format: DVD MOVIE Genre: DRAMA Rating: R UPC: 012569736672 Manufacturer No: 73667
Amazon.com:
Despite its flaws, The Good German is a welcome gift for every film lover who laments that 'they don't make 'em like they used to.' Steven Soderbergh's affectionate, knowing tribute to the black-and-white melodramas of Hollywood's golden age may lack the emotional depth and romantic passion of Michael Curtiz's Casablanca--the 1946 classic it intentionally emulates--but as Soderbergh approximates Curtiz's studio style, he delivers a shimmering, shadowy reminder that movies can be enjoyed for the sheer pleasure of their craftsmanship. Once again serving as his own cinematographer (credited as 'Peter Andrews'), Soderbergh went to great lengths to technically and aesthetically re-create the look and feel of a Curtiz production, and Joseph Kanon's source novel (adapted by Quiz Show screenwriter Paul Attanasio) provides a twisting plot set around the historical Potsdam conference in post-World War II Germany. An American military journalist, Capt. Jake Geismer (George Clooney) is in rubble-strewn Berlin to cover the event, and is quickly drawn into a murder plot involving his appointed driver (Tobey Maguire), an old flame-turned-wartime prostitute (Cate Blanchett) and her missing husband, a scientist who possesses pivotal secrets coveted by Americans and Russians in a pre-Cold War bid for power.
Violence, sexual content, and salty dialogue make it clear that this R-rated drama is a brashly contemporary homage to films of a bygone era, and not a slavish attempt to copy the past. This yields mixed results in terms of the film's overall appeal; it's gorgeous to look at, but the plot and performances exist in a vacuum, and the entire film feels oddly disengaged from any sense of genuine human emotion. It's probably fair to say that Soderbergh had more fun making the film than most people will have watching it. And yet, as Clooney's character is repeatedly beaten and deceived on his path to cynical enlightenment, The Good German has many qualities that make it recommendable, not the least being the pleasure of following a talented director as he indulges his penchant for bold experimentation. --Jeff Shannon
Customer Reviews
Average Rating: 
Rating:  - The Bad Idea
They must have thought this was great in the studio producers' suite when they saw the bleached, scratchy, black and white film and the big name 'stars' hamming it up for all they're worth in a 'film noir' wartime thriller. Another artistic intelligent classic, eh, guys... one for the Oscars!
But when you watch it and you realise the only thing going for this dreary and stultifyingly dull slice of old tat IS the grainy black and white film, you know you're in deep trouble. Mind, chances are you'll be fast asleep long before you give up caring what's going on, i.e. after about 10 minutes.
Get Dead Men Don't Wear Plaid with Steve Martin instead - at least that's REALLY clever AND funny, and you have some fun watching the big screen stars of yesteryear grafted into it with some genuine style and panache.
Rating:  - The Book Was Much Better
I loved the black and white format of this film, but found the acting wooden and the plot tired. The book was much better. This film, albeit an interesting and creative technical piece, sorely lacked the nuance and brilliance of the book. One star for effort and one star for the black-and-white.
Rating: - Dark and moody
I was disappointed in this film considering the top class actors playing the main roles. I understand the intent in filming in black and white but, as a viewer, I like to be entertained not only by the story but also the scenery, particularly on a widescreen HD TV. This picture doesn't measure up. It would be ok on an old square TV. I thought the film was drawn out.
Rating:  - A fundamental War Noir!
Since the days of Hitchcock's Topaz we had not had the chance to enjoy an original proposal around those unsaid and minuscule sins of war that are absent of the great headlines of the History.
"The good German" is a splendid and potent Noir film that focuses exactly the day before the Potsdam conference.
An American General (Clooney) is sent to Germany in 1945 after having performing as journalist in 1939 when he met Lena Brandt (Cate Blanchet), the femme fatale, whom eventually will have a torrid love affair despite of the fat she is still married with an important assistant of a key scientist who is developing a raising project by then, the V2. When an unexplainable homicide occurs, the thread will lead us to the hidden and sinister reasons backstage.
Filmed in astonishing black and white, we feel the imperious necessity of Soderbergh to pay a homage not only the Noir genre, but besides the German Expressionism, the unforgettable film "The Third man" under the streets of Berlin and specially Casablanca (the last sequence is more than a simple referential)
It's useless to say the principal star of the film is Cate Blanchet (one of the ten top actress all over the world) who really steals the show and looks light years around all the cast. She is the central nerve of the film from start to finish. Her German accent and her astonishing corporal gestures and the fabulous shots make of this film a winner but with just two inexcusable stains. ... Read More
Rating: - buy the book instead
The movie is stylish but the book is far more thought-provoking, intelligent and entertaining. This movie is so very loosely based on the book that I hardly recognized it.
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