Nuremberg: Movie Review

Cast: Rami Malek, Russell Crowe, Leo Woodall, Michael Shannon, John Slattery, Colin Hanks, Lydia Peckham

Director: James Vanderbilt

With its message of how Nazi propaganda can spread through charismatic mouth pieces, there couldn't be a more timely film than James Vanderbilt's Nuremberg.

Set at the end of the Second World War, the film begins with Russell Crowe's narcissistic Hermann Göring being arrested as he tries to escape. Assigned a psychiatrist, Douglas M Kelley (played with style and a wide-eyed smirk by Rami Malek throughout), the pressure begins to build a case against the surviving members of the regime.

But it's not just the pressure on Kelly - with a cross-international group looking to prosecute the war criminals, there's a lot hanging on this. A successful win will crush Germany and its legacy once and for all; however failure will leave the allies unable to ever take the high moral ground and prevent any further prosecution of other war criminals...

Nuremberg is a prestige piece of cinema that works solidly as a piece of fictionalised drama and one which is backed up by the impressive work of the cast within. Crowe underplays the role and creates a genuine feeling of a monster whose haughty beliefs delude him into thinking he's above everyone. There are chilling moments and Crowe does well to not overemphasise some of the elements. Equally, Malek is strong as Kelley, and Shannon makes the most of his screentime as the lawyer given the unenviable job of prosecution.

A kind of Silence of the Lambs relationship builds between Kelly and Göring, but it's a softer one that sees both actors channelling some of their best work in their shared scenes.

Yet, there's a somewhat glib atmosphere hanging over the dramatisation of the build-up to the Nuremberg trials that makes the initial part of the film feel like it's playing fast and loose with the devastating legacy of the Nazis and what they wreaked on the world.

Add to that the fact that the one surviving leader of the atrocities, the commander in chief of the Luftwaffe and the Nazis' second-in-command, Hermann Göring is humanised as a man separated from his wife and family, and suffering from a heart condition, plus the fact there are some obvious scripting gags early on, it begins to feel like Nuremberg is a little too knockabout for the weight of its subject matter.

If anything, most of the film spends a lot of time showing that Hermann Göring's family is human, papering over some of the more horrifying truths as Kelly goes back and forth to them delivering letters, drinking tea and listening to piano lessons from his daughter.

With Trumpian allusions and a courtroom scene that echoes Jack Nicholson's cross-examination in A Few Good Men, Nuremberg feels more like a broad film aimed at wanting to echo the warnings of the past to the widest audience possible. (A sentiment that is admittedly noble by any consideration.)

It's not a disaster by any stretch of the imagination and its 150-minute runtime hurtles past at speed. Plus its end is shocking to those who don't know the outcome - a devastating reminder that evil seems to triumph long-term, no matter what.

But it is extremely telling that in among all the acting that's going on, the one moment that speaks the most is genuine footage from survivors of the concentration camps that's played as evidence during the trial. With emaciated bodies, hollowed out eyes and piles of corpses being shifted by diggers, it's absolutely horrifying compelling imagery that still (rightfully) hurts decades on.