Good

If you're looking for a war flick with a lot of action, artillery and things blowing up, you might want to move on. "Good" is a slow moving, subtle, intellectual film that may bore many filmgoers, but if you're looking for more than the typical Hollywood action/war flick then definitely check this one out.

A reasonably faithful adaptation of the famous 1981 play (using much of the same dialogue, scenes and characterizations), this film is about an honest, moral, "good" family man who gets passively caught up in the pro-Nazi movement. All the while, he denies culpability and defends his moral fiber by writing off the movement as a passing phase that's no big deal, but gradually his involvement deepens to the point that he's materially assisting in the worst atrocities that humans have ever committed against one another. For this, the film is deliberately slow because that's the point it's making: that the conversion from "good" to "evil" is not a sudden snap like getting bitten by a vampire and turning into one overnight. Rather, it's a very imperceptible shift that's akin to starting a temp job in the mail room and slowly working your way up the ladder to the executive board before you've realized that you've sold your soul to the corporation.

Viggo Mortensen plays "Halder", a college professor who hates the Nazi party but reluctantly agrees to write a paper for them because he needs the money. Perfectly acceptable choice, right? Well, this leads to another choice which is equally understandable. Then another and another. His Jewish best friend "Maurice" (Jason Isaacs) is the voice of reason, warning him quite forcefully about the seduction of the Nazi party, but like a worsening drug addict, Halder insists that he's doing nothing wrong and he's in control of his moral fiber. At the same time there's another seduction going on: a pretty young student of his (Jodie Whittaker) is slowly drawing Halder away from his wife & family. The story keeps building momentum, and as an added surreal element, Halder begins having hallucinations of strangers singing different Mahler pieces.

The acting is fantastic, not just Viggo's performance but particularly Jason Isaac's portrayal of the friend. The two of them have some great dialogues, and the dynamic of their relationship is really interesting to watch as it changes. This also leads to a very powerful climax at the end of the film.

Far more than a war flick or even a historical piece, "Good" is a powerful, realistic explanation of human nature and how good people can do bad things. And it doesn't matter how moral we may feel about ourselves and our life choices, I guarantee that each of us is at some level guilty of the same insidious hypocrisy shown here. If you accept this and take a sober look at your own life, then this film may make you a better person.

"Good" is one of those films that will sit in your mind for a long time afterwards. I can't think of too many movies that compare, but the pacing and slow buildup to a stunning conclusion remind me of the classics "The Spy Who Came In from the Cold" (1965), or even "Streetcar Named Desire" (1951). If you're looking for other unusual spins on the holocaust, look for the Czech film "Protektor" (2009) or the Italian feel-good holocaust flick (huh?) "Life is Beautiful" (1997). And if you really want your mind blown about human nature, Naziism and the power of authority to turn normal people into killers, go to YouTube and watch the 1962 documentary "The Stanley Milgram Experiment".

I watched this film expecting little. However, I was pleasantly surprised to find the film educational and interesting throughout. It paints a picture of the 'Jewish Question' and events leading up to it, focusing on a few characters to give it a personal feel.

Granted, some of the acting was a little ropey, but I would urge people not to let that put them off. I have a particular interest in the second World War, and perhaps that makes me biased, but suspect that even those with no interest in that period of time would still be able to let the film absorb them into the plot.

Recommended, 9/10.

Long before the advent of the third Reich, Hitler and their persecution of the Jews in the 1940's, Edmund Burke once now infamously said that all it takes for evil to triumph is for good men to do nothing; to know in their hearts and see the evils going on around them, but to sit back and let it unfold whether out of fear, apathy or both. Good, which sets about detailing the profile of a man who fits this description almost perfectly after he gets involved with the Nazi party unwillingly, deals with the central premise of Burke's evaluation, and does so whilst keeping in mind the humanity at play when struggles of good and evil take precedence. At times sombre and reflective, at others a tad monotonous and pedantic, director Vicente Amorim's film nevertheless takes a large page of history and gives it a small, introspective look at how easily evil can overcome one's life without even knowing. As a set piece, it lacks the conviction required to take it to a higher level, but certainly as a small, somewhat humbled character piece, Good serves its purpose well.

It is of no surprise to learn that the film's screenplay was adapted from a play written by C.P. Taylor; the same themes that carried said play, permeating the entirety of Good's makeup in a way that consistently reaffirms its central ideas and philosophies. While features such as these which deal with the holocaust, the Second World War and the Nazi party with a sense of distilled reality and less than realistic shades of grey when it comes to the portrayals of those behind the uniforms, screenwriter John Wrathall's adaptation stays true to the disquieted approach of Taylor's play and documents the fall of a good man into the hands of his enemy; the censoring, dictating, and anti-semantic nationalist socialist party—eager to segregate the Jews and "cleanse" the new Reich of their influence. Indeed, one of the most important and significant aspects to Amorim's feature here is that here we are invited to see the transformation not only of a country, but of a singular man who remains true to his heart throughout, but fails to notice his outward transformation until one chilling scene where he looks into the mirror to see a man he wouldn't be able to put a name to.

Aside from Viggo Mortensen's obtuse performance which takes him away from his most recently extremely self-aware roles, across from him lays Jason Isaacs who plays his best friend, a Jewish Psychotherapist. Of course, right from the get-go you know where all this is going; and therein lays the only real problem with a story such as this. While Hollywood cinema has been reluctant up until the most recent years to let the Evil from the East be given a face and a soul, even though Good comes at a time when this wave of drama is catching some momentum, you can't help but feel like you've heard all this before in some way or another. Taylor's play does well to stick at what it knows best—which is humanity, the heart and the choices that both have to make in order to preserve themselves—yet the moral play at hand here is largely innocuous and unenlightening enough to pass as something of a footnote to this kind of philosophising that has been going on, well, long before Burke even uttered those famous words.

With this being said however, Good, if taken lightly, offers up a nevertheless well crafted and mostly harmless take on the human condition in a manner which doesn't tax but at the same time doesn't cause one to drift to sleep either. With some fine performances from both Mortensen and Isaacs, as well as femme-fatale of sorts Jodie Whittaker and TB-inflicted mother Gemma Jones, the ensemble that dominates the screen here does well to reinforce the feeling of humanity throughout to the point where plotting and overt thematic material becomes secondary to the real conflicts at hand. As a drama, the movie works—if only barely. It's by no means something that is required viewing for just about anyone, but when it comes to movies dealing with the behind-the-scenes transformations of a country and its people during times of social reformation and war, Good has enough to satisfy and provoke thought—even if they are recycled and a tad overly familiar by now.

• A review by Jamie Robert Ward (http://www.invocus.net)

An easily Seduced Academic is separated from His Wife and His Conscience by a Flirtatious Blonde Student and a Allure of an Easy Life from the Nazis. A Weak Intellectual Type is probably an Easy Mark for both. The "Good" Man who does nothing while Evil is all around Him is the Heart and Soul of the Film, Subtly and Methodically showing how it can readily happen.

The Movie is so easily paced that it lacks a few Hard and Disturbing Scenes to jar the Viewer into some sort of Urgency. Nothing here seems at all Desperate until it is too late and that's the Thesis. But in Cinematic Terms it all just sort of happens and the Impact of the Implications and the Fingerpointing gets smothered in a Lethargic Pace and the Exclamation Points become Periods.

Not a Bad Movie, it is quite Good. However, the Profound Warnings it attempts to Reflect with its Historical Mirror are never given enough Hutzpah to be anything more than a Muse. A Sincere and Important Muse to be sure, but it fails to use its Fiction and its Medium to bring Home its Message. Apathy is nothing but Self-Preservation at the Expense of Everything Else.

So many tired themes about these times. This one, particularly, stands apart. I just liked it. WATCH THIS MOVIE.