Judgement of NUREMBERG? Guilty.
Verdict? Go see.
The Nazi Göring, chillingly played by Russell Crowe is a narcissistic, charming brute. The thin ice of his evil seems solid as concrete.
At the beginning of the picture, World War II has ended and Hitler’s Number 2 is captured by the Allies and brought to Nuremberg to face trial for crimes against humanity.
The Allies assign a psychiatrist, Douglas Kelly, to assess this mass assassin’s mental state, to make sure he is fit to stand trial. Rami Malek’s performance is a career best.
Writer director James Vanderbilt has written a terrific script of broad narrative scope that weaves in pivotal figures whose actions and perspectives shaped the course of history. Among them, chief prosecutor Robert Jackson, whose impassioned drive established the very framework of the trials, and his British counterpart David Maxwell-Fyfe; Col. Burton Andrus, the warden tasked with the daunting responsibility of guarding the Nazi defendants; and psychologist Gustave Gilbert, whose own interpretations of evil stood in sharp contrast to Kelley’s. Each of them became essential threads in this rich tapestry of a trial that leaves a trail to contemporary international law.
There’s a dry sense of humour that is a thread throughout this entire film, because it’s a story about human beings, and in certain circumstances humans must find their own ways to escape the horrors. The dialogue shines and quivers with conviction and the cast pursues that conviction with a passion.
Apart from the aforementioned leads, Michael Shannon as Jackson, Richard E. Grant as Maxwell-Fyfe, Colin Hanks as Gusatve Gilbert, and the distinctly dry John Slattery as Burton Andrus are superb.
NUREMBERG is top drawer drama, mesmeric and enthralling, an application of logical pressures about events that have shaped our world, an historical piece with subtle reminders that repulsive regimes can legislate repulsive laws, and that there is nothing banal about evil.
