As the screenwriter for the all-around masterpiece that is “Zodiac,” James Vanderbilt essentially gets a lifetime free pass.
Unfortunately, he milked that freedom for all it’s worth with some doozies like the Adam Sandler-led Netflix whodunnit “Murder Mystery” and its sequel, “White House Down,” and this year’s most forgettable blockbuster, “Fountain of Youth.”
“Nuremberg” might just be what the doctor ordered to get things back on track, a by-the-numbers World War II courtroom drama packed with an all-star cast. Although Vanderbilt seems to have focused too much on the vegetable portion of that prescription, delivering a film so stately and sturdy that it might as well be a long-lost HBO made-for-TV movie.
That’s not a far-fetched comparison, considering that the Nuremberg trials have already been depicted on television in a two-part TNT miniseries, airing in the summer of 2000. Brian Cox won an Emmy for his portrayal of Reichsmarschall Hermann Göring, the second most powerful official in Nazi Germany, behind only Adolf Hitler. Russell Crowe steps into that role for Vanderbilt’s film, an adaptation of Jack El-Hai’s 2013 book that features a few of the same historical figures as the miniseries.
One of the first images lensed by DP Dariusz Wolski is that of an American soldier urinating on a Nazi sign as he escorts civilians to safety in the spring of 1945. The war is winding down, leaving over 70 million dead in its wake. Göring’s civilized and half-hearted attempt to drive away from the scene of the crime leads right into American hands, where he is arrested and jailed with the rest of the Nazi high command.
But that was just the easy part, with the decision of what to do with him being exponentially more difficult. For as much as everyone would like to see it happen, immediately killing him would send a far too vengeful message than the world needs at this moment. U.S. Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) has the idea to put them all on trial, an Allied coalition effort that would unequivocally prove the Nazi’s guilt in their crimes against humanity, thereby diminishing their power throughout the future.
While the allies are preparing their case, the United States military has brought in hotshot psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) to assess the prisoners’ mental stability and ensure they are fit to be put on trial. Sensing an opportunity for professional and monetary gain, Kelley decides to focus his efforts on Göring, meeting with him on several occasions to gather material for an eventual book on the psychology of evil.
But what he doesn’t expect to discover is a man not so different from him, one who genuinely cares for his wife and daughter, and probably eats and drinks more than he should. He flawlessly served his country, raising Germany from the destitution it was subjected to after World War I to a world superpower. He doesn’t have hate in his heart for a specific group of people, just the general enemies preventing him from doing his duty.
That sense of banality to some of the most inhumane acts in human history is a similar theme that director Jonathan Glazer explored in his Nazi-centered film, “The Zone of Interest.” Like Göring, several other Nazi officials simply saw themselves as cogs in the war machine, following orders for the service of their country. It was like a corporation, with lower-level individual ideologies being subsumed by the orders of higher-ups. Clashing with your boss is a bad idea for anyone trying to make a name for themselves in the new world order.
But while Glazer let our minds vividly paint the horrifying picture through a neutral point of view, Vanderbilt is much more heavy-handed in his approach.
There are endless speeches about the importance of this occasion and how this has to work so it can never happen again. There does come a point when it would be more beneficial for Vanderbilt to cut to the chase and have the characters stare directly into the audience as they make their grand statements, all while holding up a newspaper with today’s prescient headlines.
Still, there’s some charm to how old-school this all feels. It could also be my bias for any period piece that eclipses a runtime of two and a half hours. John Slattery plays the colonel in charge of overseeing the prison. Brian Tyler’s score swells as he gives each Nazi their own Suicide Squad-esque intro, complete with cheesy archival footage. He ends the sequence by rousingly announcing, “Gentleman, welcome to Nuremberg!” as if this is the beginning of some grand adventure.
If this were to be considered an adventure, then it would have needed to find a better lead, as Malek is woefully miscast as the playboy doctor. He’s introduced by wooing a female passenger on his train with a card trick, except that no chemistry has been created to produce an inkling of attraction. Tom Cruise played this role best in “A Few Good Men,” and Crowe aptly supplies this movie’s version of Jack Nicholson’s Col. Nathan R. Jessep. He’s exacting in his words and confident in his methods, always seemingly one step ahead of what the Allies are planning.
High school history teachers will have a field day with “Nuremberg” over the next few years, although they’d still be much better off by sticking with Stanley Kramer’s 1961 classic “Judgment at Nuremberg.”
Rather than shy away from controversy, as was customary for Hollywood at the time, Kramer always dove headfirst into the thorny battles in America’s conscience, applying a showman’s touch to stories centered on morals rather than stars. Vanderbilt has modestly succeeded in living up to that expectation, although increased politicization of cinema in the decades since makes his version seem so quaint by today’s standards.
Eden Prairie resident Hunter Friesen is a film critic who owns and operates The Cinema Dispatch, a website where he writes reviews, essays, and more. He currently serves as president of the Minnesota Film Critics Association and travels the globe covering film festivals both big and small. To view his entire body of work, you can visit his website and Instagram.
