Nuremberg, 2025.
Written and Directed by James Vanderbilt.
Starring Russell Crowe, Rami Malek, Leo Woodall, John Slattery, Mark O’Brien, Colin Hanks, Wrenn Schmidt, Lydia Peckham, Lotte Verbeek, Richard E. Grant, Michael Shannon, Andreas Pietschmann, Steven Pacey, Peter Jordan, Dan Cade, Paul Antony-Barber, Ralph Berkin, Roderick Hill, Wolfgang Cerny, Jeremy Wheeler, Donald Sage Mackay, Alex Diehl, Dieter Riesle, Fleur Bremmer, András Korcsmáros, Wayne Brett, Blake Kubena, Tom Keune, Billy Rayner, Gyula Mesterházy, and Michael Sheldon.
SYNOPSIS:
A WWII psychiatrist evaluates Nazi leaders before the Nuremberg trials, growing increasingly obsessed with understanding evil as he forms a disturbing bond with Hermann Göring.
US intelligence officer/psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) and Supreme Court Justice Robert H. Jackson (Michael Shannon) find themselves joining forces on an unprecedented trial not just to hold high-ranking Nazis accountable, including Adolf Hitler’s successor to be Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe, who apparently only takes roles nowadays if he gets to do an accent), but put forth a contingency plan to keep world leaders in check and ensure something like this would never happen again.
Numerous characters also wax philosophical that if this were to happen again, the world would never survive. One could say writer/director James Vanderbilt has his finger on the pulse of the current cultural moment with Nuremberg (based on the book The Nazi and the Psychiatrist by Jack El-Hai), or rather that the film is too on the nose in its parallels drawn to, well, the existing nightmare in America. The overcranked swelling score doesn’t help matters.
It’s one of many small touches that gradually add up to a cinematic sheen, presenting this material as a capital M movie rather than a thorough and truthful examination of the Nuremberg trials. Why is Douglas Kelley performing card tricks like a rejected character from the Now You See Me universe? Why are the remains of the area depicted like a battle from a CGI blockbuster just took place, rather than authentic ruins of the deadliest war in history? Who thought it was a good idea for Russell Crowe to say “abracadabra” during a pivotal point of the climax?
And why is a good chunk of this frustratingly paced movie slogging through Douglas Kelley falling under a manipulative sympathy spell from Hermann Göring? Admittedly, it makes sense for the character’s arc, both in terms of presentation; it’s as if James Vanderbilt wants his audience to fall for the same trick, sympathizing with a Nazi so he can pull the rug out from under them, as he does with Douglas Kelley. It’s a strange creative choice that needs a stronger script to work alongside a film that isn’t trying to tell five stories at once.
One would presume that, given the source material being adapted, The Nazi and the Psychiatrist, the narrative would focus on that. However, James Vanderbilt, perhaps misguided in ambition, thinks bigger in scope, following Robert H. Jackson across roadblocks to get this international trial off the ground. At the very least, it relates to the film’s purpose. There are also subplots here, such as Robert’s positioning for a higher ranking in the US government or Douglas’ repeated cutesy interactions with a journalist (Wrenn Schmidt) that add nothing to the story.
Alternatively, a rivalry between psychiatrists emerges between him and Dr. Gustav Gilbert (Colin Hanks), or talks with a Jewish German sergeant (Leo Woodall) who nervously can’t wait to tell one of the Nazis he has a past with about his complicated identity, before they all hang after what they hope to be a successful trial where they are sentenced to death. Essentially, this amounts to much starting and stopping in a film that should be ratcheting up momentum to its trial centerpiece, not getting in the way of itself.
What makes this all the more frustrating is that the trial itself commands attention, with Michael Shannon and Russell Crowe waging a psychological war of words to secure a confession or admission of guilt. It’s a glimpse of how electric Nuremberg could have been if James Vanderbilt weren’t thinking epic in scope, tying together several characters and plot threads without any sense of narrative grace or flow. Even then, one would still have to contend with the dramatic liberties taken here, which sometimes border on preposterous (taking verified history and ditching it for a tacky magic trick). Yes, this is much more alive than the standard dry retelling of history, and there is some thanks to be had there, but it’s also in service of an approach that bluntly feels off and comfortable sacrificing emotional truths and facts.
Flickering Myth Rating – Film: ★ ★ / Movie: ★ ★ ★
Robert Kojder
