Wow! What a bizarre film! Unfortunately the few funny moments there were were quite overshadowed by it's completely weird and random vibe throughout.

The film may be flawed, but its message is not.

Great movie. Not sure what people expected but I found it highly entertaining.

It's simply great fun, a winsome film and an occasionally over-the-top luxury fantasy that never flags.

The first thing you have to say about The Good German is, this movie completely nails the look and style. It's not just a movie with a 1940s- era look, it's a movie with a specific *mid-to-late* 1940s look, that period between the lush, deep blacks of early '40s movies like Casablanca and the more washed out black and white of the early fifties. It doesn't just have a '40s look, but the look of an exceptionally well- filmed '40s movie. The score is even more dead-on; I would challenge anyone to differentiate this musically from the scores of the period.Some people here are complaining that it's not true to form because there's some swearing and sex, but I see no need to make a movie that is indistinguishable in every detail from an old movie. If not for the Hayes code, movies back then would have had sex and swearing, so the movie is quite true to the film making artists of the period.Performances are quite good. Cate Blanchett successfully goes for the world weary quality of Dietrich and Garbo, while Tobey Maguire's Tully is a wonderfully realized character who would best be described as a "piece of work." George Clooney is good, and his movie-star looks make him the perfect choice for the part, but while Blanchett and Maguire seem to really want to catch the cadences of the period, Clooney plays Clooney the way he always plays Clooney, and it doesn't quite fit. But that's a quibble.The twisty story is intriguing, and plays with the moral gray areas that were also popping up in late '40s movies, particularly in film noir, but it's a little too convoluted, with a few too many characters and some continuity jumps. But overall I knew what was going on and who the main players were.If you've watched as many old movies as I have, you really need to see this one, just because it's the most perfect retro recreation since Far From Heaven.

Believable period decor, urban post-war detailing, B&W shots set up to mimic 1940s camera work — and especially Cate Blanchett's fine, shadowy lineaments and her credible spoken German — these may save unsuspecting viewers from a pernicious slide into the Quagmire of Despond.Until mid-movie, that is. The dull tenterhooks on which I was to writhe from that point forward proved ineffectual against mind fog. It thickened with each random plot twist. My finger inched toward, but never found, Fast-forward, Pause or Self-Immolate.It were as though the low light and the absence of color had leached timing and savoir-faire from the The Good German set. (Blanchett, however, apparently knew to wear light- and color-fast threads that prevented her aura from dimming.)But why did Soderbergh and Attanasio not huddle behind camera, where they might improvise a remedial script? Had they heeded their roiling instincts prompting them to demur, the rewrite they'd have produced on the fly might have gone down as one of the most inspired saves in the annals of film.Would it have been so difficult, for example, to have had Tobey Maguire dismembered in the first ten minutes after carelessly stepping on live unexploded ordnance? His demise would have been supremely satisfying — and not all that gory in fifty-some shades of grey.Rejiggering The Good German would have required a bit more finagling than that, though nothing too fancy. The percussive force of the deus ex machina Maguire explosion could have thrust Clooney backward into a rubble pit, leaving him dazed and blessedly mute. Whatever acting talents his fans impute to him would only have been heightened by a 90- minute stint of pantomime.The wispy plot line of The Good German is tangled beyond the ability of most mortals to unknot. Viewers would have had fewer misgivings about the writers if Clooney had played an aphasiac. What ever is he trying to tell us? we'd have wondered. Instead, puzzlement gnawed: Why does this cuddlesome cipher keep striving to come off as gauche, vacuous and witless?Clooney's overacting flame-out — one can think of B&W screwball comedies with more subtle leads — ensured that the film's deficiencies would scorch its assets. That need not have been so. Few would publicly deny that Clooney has the range needed to play a speechless war casualty. Had he been thus retasked, Soderbergh's strained attempts at cinematic authenticity would not have stood out so starkly.Even a dumb Clooney, however, ought to have known better than to let his character be written into a fumbling, gratuitous "tribute" to Casablanca toward the end. But — surprise! — he acquiesced. That aesthetic insult proved to be the film's coup de grâce.Finally, mercifully, as the credits began rolling by, my arms slowly unwrapped and allowed my head to rise and inhale freely again.Even if someone just gave birth to you, life's too short. You'd be better off spending two hours at the Lotto machine.

This picture could have been so much better than it turned out. I was hoping for a good spy picture, and it started out like a possible "Third Man" type story. It was a black-and-white movie set in WWII and with a good cast. I am sorry to report it did not live up to expectations.The main problem was that, like Kate Blanchett's character, it lacked a heart and a reason to root for someone, anyone. In fact, it was a collection of nasty, unattractive people played by charismatic actors in thankless roles. I thought it captured the post-war cynicism and skepticism between the two superpowers, and the incipient rivalry that was to become the cold war, but it needed more character involvement - maybe they shouldn't have killed off Beekman, or gotten more mileage out of Brandt, or used Beau Bridges in more scenes. He and Clooney played well off each other, as they did in "The Descendants". In any case, it wasn't compelling or absorbing enough to merit a higher rating. It was like a 'B' picture that ran too long.

The director wishes to recreate a long lost genre with this film. Using a smaller film ratio rather than a full cinema widescreen view, old style lighting, fixed cameras and filming in black & white, this all hankers back to the glory days of the film noir, in particular classics like "The Third Man".Let's be honest, few of us are really experts in the genre. It's sadly old hat for too many who let it pass them by. Films like "The Third Man" are really compulsory for film lovers, and it's great to see homages made to it. However, this film doesn't succeed.The plot of this film is convoluted to say the least, and takes us on a journey as our main man finds that his re-acquaintance in post-WW2 Berlin with an old flame is no mere coincidence. Add in politics, murder, mystery & intrigue and you have one tricky story. You'll follow the plot enough but for some reason I just found it all too uninteresting at the end. I can't finger it, maybe I couldn't empathise with the characters (despite some good acting by Clooney & Blanchett). Just not sure about it.It's overall far from emulating the best of the old school movies, and it's quite disappointing. Never makes the impression you'd hope despite interesting themes (greed, realpolitik, survival, love etc). Not one I'll likely be looking back on to view again sadly. Hopefully, others will try again in this genre for better.