Good (2008)

The Worst Film Ever

Good films always raise compelling questions, whether the format is fiction or documentary fact.

Like the great film, it's made with a great deal of visible affection both in front of and behind the camera.

I didn’t really have many expectations going into the movie (good or bad), but I actually really enjoyed it. I really liked the characters and the banter between them.

"Good" starts quietly, but ends powerfully. It goes to the heart of our sense of right and wrong.The movie is set in Germany a few years before WW2. John Halder (Viggo Mortenson) is a WW1 veteran and university lecturer who lives in a small apartment with his wife, two children and a demanding, invalid mother.He has written a novel about euthanasia, which the new Nazi government finds is in accord with their ideas, and John is offered a post within the SS. Although he is anything but a Nazi, John nonetheless enjoys the advantages the position offers him although it compromises his relationship with his friend, Maurice Glückstein (Jason Isaacs), a Jew.John also leaves his wife and marries a sexy young student, Anne (Jodie Whittaker); he is a man who seems easily seduced in love and in life. Eventually, in the film's grim finale, John is forced to confront his lack of firmness and the realities of the Nazi regime.The story shows in microcosm how the Nazis seduced the Germans, and how they accepted the loss of personal freedoms and worse for what seemed to be for the good of the nation, a better life, and maybe, just not to rock the boat. However, there was a price to pay and once ensnared there was no turning back.The film probably has more relevance to people who know some history of the times, because it helps explain why John acts the way he does - although not stated overtly, his actions are driven by underlying fear. There are little touches that the filmmakers don't feel necessary to explain such as why the previous occupants of Anne and John's new apartment have left so suddenly - a knowledge of the times would suggest that they were Jews who had been evicted.Some scenes are painful to watch, especially as John fails to help Maurice as the Nazis ramp up their persecution of the Jews. Here, the film seems to challenge the viewer, "What would you do in his place"? Would you have the courage to swim against the tide of events? John is basically a decent man, however he is too pliable, too apathetic, and does not act until it is too late."Good" may seem slow to some, "Iron Man 2" it is not. But I feel that the time it takes to build its characters pays off in the end - we become involved. One of the most asked questions in history is how did the Nazis manage to sway ordinary Germans to their cause? This film gives part of the answer in an intimate and accessible way. As British philosopher Edmund Burke famously said, " The only thing necessary for the triumph of evil is for good men to do nothing".

"First they came for the communists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a communist. Then they came for the socialists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a socialist. Then they came for the trade unionists, and I did not speak out, because I was not a trade unionist. Then they came for the Jews, and I did not speak out, because I was not a Jew. Then they came for me, and there was no one left to speak out for me." ― Martin Niemöller Based on a play by CP Taylor, Vincente Amorim's "Good" stars Viggo Mortenen as John Halder, a university lecturer whose novel about euthanasia impresses the newly elected Adolf Hitler.A well meaning but familiar morality play, "Good" watches as John is seduced by the Nazi party. Gradually he finds his writings being used to justify persecution, confinement and murder. Amorim then poses a series of questions. How can a good man partake in and give birth to such evil? Was Halder ever a good man? How can Halder consistently remain blind to the ramifications of his thoughts, words and actions? How culpable is he? "Good" climaxes with Halder witnessing himself in a Nazi uniform. In an instant he recognises the monster he's become, a monster which he swiftly buries beneath a series of hallucinogenic idealisations. He's a good man, he tells himself, as the cries of concentration camps knock on his sealed ears.6/10 – For more interesting Holocaust films, see Costa Gavras' "Amen", Wertmuller's "Seven Beauties", Vittorio de Sica's "The Garden of the Finzi-Continis", Marcel Ophuls' "Hotel Terminus", 1972's "Winter Soldier", Visconti's "The Damned" and Menno Mejes' "Max".

I think it must have been a good play. Or perhaps they got the finance from someone who knew how the film would turn out. The acting is good, rather deliberately deadpan for the subject material. Reviews here have to be ten lines of text, although what to do when the film is only worth ten words, some of them rather short and blunt, is not specified.The film is pleading that 'good' Germans who betrayed Jewish friends and helped the Nazis round up Jewish people and send them 'away' just kind of ended up doing the holocaust by a sort of bad luck. Don't tell me that the title is supposed to be ironic.I understand it lost money. Now that is good.

This is an excellent film (and stage play) that does not concentrate so much on the holocaust, but how it affects one man in his personal journey through the Third Reich. Viggo Mortenson as John Halder shows his acting chops with this role, the subtlety of John's seduction is sublime. What is he seduced into, you ask? What does John Halder believe about himself that allows him to make the decisions that are put to him? Watch this film. I have seen both the play and the film and have been deeply affected each time I see it in to an empathy with the people who had to live through this hideous time. I do not excuse what happened, but have a better understanding of how it could have happened.