Horrible, fascist and poorly acted

Don't listen to the negative reviews

Admirable film.

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

The Jewish nation has provided very many talented people; some of them found use of the talent on another side of law - as the counterfeiter Salomon 'Sally' Sorowitsch, the protagonist of Die Fälscher. Imprisoned before the World War II already, he was naturally transferred into a concentration camp, where he and other "graphic" talents survived due to their skills only as they were necessary for Operation Bernard. As there are Jews of different political views, moral values, education, countries of origin etc, tensions are high soon, and apart from their common enemy - Nazis, they will have fights with each other and inside themselves. All this is expressed in a realistic and enrapturing manner (although the ending is too sudden and trivial).During the film, you would also realise how similar totalitarian regimes (incl. the Soviet Union) were, i.e. in handling the sick, putting criminal and political prisoners together etc (btw, the Soviets took over Sachenhausen and used it as a NKVD special camp). Ancient principle of Divide And Rule! was widely used.The cast is very strong and even, beginning with Karl Markovics as Sorowitsch and Devid Striesow as Sturmbannführer Herzog. All the characters are elaborated, reasons for their deeds logically visible.Recommended to all those fond of historical dramas based on true events.

THE GOOD - Here we have a story of Jews "enlisted" to help the Nazis win the war by counterfeiting foreign currency. Basically, if they do their job and shut up they will be dealt, a bit of a better hand than their brethren without their unique counterfeiting skills. Sometimes one has to stand on principle rather than survival and that's what is reverberated for me throughout this movie. There is opposing forces, infighting, but eventually thanks to the men efforts who delayed counterfeiting foreign currency, they contributed to the downfall of the Nazis in their own little way. And doing it under Nazi duress makes for an all-around classic story. Everything is connected and all holds well, we know how the movie will end from the time it opens but the journey to get to that place is often the hardest part. What am I talking about? Give the movie a watch to find out. But first read… THE QUESTIONABLE parts of this film... to some there is a blur of what is good and right in the movie and the end leaves you questioning this. If you are the type who is a goody toe-shoes and likes a good moral ending you may find this one not up your alley, as it ends in a gray area when it comes to morality.THE BAD - I mean not much. This felt like a full story. I felt the creative team behind the movie maxed out the direction they was going. The bad part of the film will be the questionable part to some. Also, character development and back story could have been better if you wish to knit pick.WHY only a 7/10 IMDb style or a regular to high 3 out of 4 stars. It just felt like the story was in that critical range. You won't be disappointed if you watch "The Counterfeiters".

It's important to separate the subject matter from the movie itself when reviewing this genre.Few will be unmoved by the former, but that's not relevant when considering the latter, except - marginally - to the extent that the film is or is not historically accurate. Feelings about the subject should not affect objectivity when scoring the film's success or otherwise.I watched this on DVD, with English subtitles.The acting I found to be consistently good: the problem I had was with the direction. The action takes place in what can only be described as a series of vignettes, mostly separated by jumpcuts. Fifty years ago, the jumpcut was one of the big no-nos in movie-making: how could an audience follow the action when a shot of the hero putting on his jacket was cut to him driving off in his Healy? Time showed how - people became educated by repetition and nowadays have no problem with such techniques. Jumpcuts move the action along.However, in The Counterfeiters this relaxation of the rules has gone too far, and instead of hurrying the film along I feel the constant jumps actually hinder the feeling of progression, of the storytelling.The reason I call the scenes "vignettes" is because I often got the impression that the script had been episodic in the writing: that a series of bulleted items had been laid out in a list and then the script had followed religiously from them, rather than being crafted as a whole.Then there's the hand-held camera-work. Oh dear! Hasn't it become a cinematic cliché! It is one of my hobby horses I'm afraid, but although the jerky camera works when the movie is showing action as if filmed off the cuff - *in* action as it were - to watch a full length movie with the screen wobbling around for no real reason is just irritating. It doesn't show us anything; it doesn't have any relevance to the story. It's not as if the filming was being accomplished on a smuggled camera in the camp, or this was being simulated. No, no, no.The music track I thought ill-conceived and in many places completely out of sympathy with the subject of the story. Some parts of the track would have been at home in a Python sketch, not a human tragedy.This was not an enjoyable film to watch for obvious reasons, but my comments shouldn't be seen as too much of a criticism: it is very watchable, interesting in the portrayal of friends and foes in a concentration camp with their shifting loyalties and is certainly not a *bad* movie. I'd like to give it an eight, I put it down as a six but have just halved the difference as I post this to make it a strong seven.

The Holocaust has been revisited in film so many times that I imagine the first thing German-born film actors ask themselves upon meeting is "which film(s) were you a Nazi in?" The crimes of the Nazi Party and the German soldiers carrying out its mission to revive Germany through the mass killing of Jews and other "invalids" are so unfathomable and powerful that filmmakers and storytellers can't help but find so many ways to tell complex stories of morality and human survival."The Counterfeiters" is another one of these films, but lack of originality is absolutely the only knock against it."Counterfeiters" focuses on a group of Jews assembled by the Nazis to create mass quantities of Ally currency to be used to decimate Ally economies. It's the same type of lens on the Holocaust, but a different "edition" so to speak. Yet the script is immaculate, the drama understated and effective, the plot completely engaging, and best of all: it's a Holocaust film under two hours -- and a great one at that. It begins with a morally complex main character, the crooked-faced Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), who before the war was a professional counterfeiter, one with considerable artistic talent who chose the more "financially sound" career. Simply put, he's a criminal and the crimes of the Holocaust manage to make us sympathetic to him. He's an honest criminal, but a criminal no less. As the leader of his counterfeiting team in a way, following his point of view is extremely interesting. There is his survival instinct, his pride over the work even though it's helping the Nazis and characters such as his friend Burger the printer (Adolf Burger, who wrote the book the film is based on), who pressures him not to do the work and risk death on principle.These are all familiar Holocaust film themes. There are the Jews who will do anything to stay alive, helping the Nazis or doing whatever they bid for an extra scrap of food and soft beds and those who would be willing martyrs, dying before they stoop to a certain level or help a Nazi.The difference is in the execution. Stefan Ruzowitzky has done an incredible job adapting Burger's incredible true account. He's identified the key moments and turning points and crafted ideal scenes to help build the plot up. He wastes no time getting to the point. The scenes are short and sweet, giving us bursts of information, emotion and symbolism, sometimes in just a minute. Directing off his own script, he directs us to key visuals that convey all that information like a leftover piece of food that conveys the hunger not always at the forefront of a scene. The pacing is exceptional, especially for a Holocaust film, and though some of the scenes are brutal it doesn't hit the audience over the head with scenes of terror and emotion that go straight for the heartstrings. It's much more subtle and effectively so.It's hard to visit yet another Holocaust film, but "The Counterfeiters" is worth it because of Ruzowitzky's fine craftsmanship and its overall subtly. It's the impact of a Holocaust film without all the emotionally distressful scenes and the screaming and the heartfelt violin music. The unique story of Sorowtisch and these group of Jews who are given a bit more privilege yet in turn forced to wrestle with a bit of moral guilt makes it a warranted trip into a oft-visited historical genre.~Steven CVisit my site http://moviemusereviews.com