Movie Review: Nuremberg

At the end of World War II, after Nazi Germany had fallen, the party leaders that remained alive were being rounded up by Allied forces who would then have to decide what to do with them. Many were very understandably longing for revenge, but there were some who had a host of reasons to see the prisoners put on trial instead. One was United States Supreme Court Justice Robert Jackson (Michael Shannon), who felt that we needed to both demonstrate our moral fortitude and get the men responsible to confess on the record all that transpired inside the still-not-understood concentration camps. Despite many doubters, he is able to convince the world’s leaders to hold the trial and so he volunteers to head to Nuremberg, where they are to be held, to serve as the American prosecutor.

As a result of this, the captive Nazi leaders are transferred to the prison neighboring the courthouse, and U.S. Army psychiatrist Douglas Kelley (Rami Malek) is tasked with monitoring them to ensure they don’t try to harm themselves. Of particular interest to him (and the world) is Hermann Göring (Russell Crowe), second in command to Hitler himself and therefore the highest-ranking government official still alive. With Sergeant Howie Triest (Leo Woodall) serving as translator, Kelley sets about getting to know the prisoners and trying to figure out what could have driven them to carry out such atrocities in the hopes that he might publish a book about the nature of “evil”.

As the trial date nears, Jackson and his British counterpart Sir David Maxwell Fyfe (Richard E. Grant) both feel intense pressure to obtain a decisive victory while Colonel Andrus (John Slattery), who is running the prison, grows doubtful of Kelley’s efficacy. He seems to have good reason, as the psychiatrist’s relationship with Göring grows increasingly chummy. When a prisoner does manage to commit suicide under his watch, another doctor is called in, and Douglas must decide just how much help he is willing to give the prosecution.

Nuremberg is a handsomely staged and finely polished picture, that somehow manages to make the lead-up to the trials almost “fun” to watch, for better or worse. The characters are all appealing to watch as the estimable cast turns out superb work, with only Malek sometimes feeling a touch out of place (problematic since he is the lead). Whereas the amount of enjoyment he appears to be deriving from the proceedings can be a touch off-putting (maybe on purpose?), the pleasure that the narcissistic Göring obtains makes more sense, as his schemes to somehow come out on top appear to possibly be working. Crowe relishes the role and gives one of his best performances in years. Leo Woodall’s Triest is also noteworthy, as the young actor injects some genuine humanity that is sorely lacking from much of the rest of the picture.

Director and co-writer (with Jack El-Hai) James Vanderbilt shows he knows how to put on an Oscar-bait production, getting the most out of his talented crew as every frame looks fantastic. But perhaps the writer of Independence Day: Resurgence, Murder Mystery, and Fountain of Youth was not the wisest choice for such heady material (though to be fair he did also pen David Fincher’s Zodiac). There is an Ocean’s Eleven-esque breeziness to some of the material that feels somewhat inappropriate, though it does add some emotional heft of actual footage from concentration camps being shown in the trial, simply due to its feeling so jarring in comparison.

Justice Jackson’s hope that exposing the horrors committed by the Germans to the eyes of the world might help prevent them from being repeated is a noble one, that feels especially resonant as various governments around the world threaten to backslide into authoritarianism. The movie is a little hamfisted in its delivery, even having Kelley spelling the message out in the final scene, but that doesn’t lessen its impact. Nuremberg is a good movie that one can’t help but wish was a great one. ★★★