Russell Crowe and Rami Malek Star in ‘Nuremberg,’ an Old-Fashioned Serious Movie

Eighty years on, the Nuremberg trials represent a successful application of the concept of an international rule of law. Hollywood, in its perpetual aim for universality, has taken a keen interest in the prosecution’s ability to set global standards in matters of war, humanity, and justice, resulting in several works based on the trials, including the Oscar-winning “Judgment at Nuremberg” from 1961 and TNT’s 2000 miniseries “Nuremberg.” The latest major movie, also called “Nuremberg,” focuses on a key figure in the initial trial of the captured Nazi leadership: Lieutenant Colonel Douglas Kelley of the United States Army. As a psychiatrist, he was tasked with evaluating the prisoners’ competency before trial and ensuring they didn’t commit suicide. As played by Oscar winner Rami Malek, he was also something of a maverick. In the film, Kelley meets with the initial 22 Nazis charged by the tribunal in 1945, concentrating on Hermann Göring, the second most powerful Nazi after Hitler. As portrayed by Russell Crowe, another Oscar winner, Göring comes off as undefeated, charming, intelligent, narcissistic, and subtly ruthless. The tête-à-tête between the two celebrities — an almost David and Goliath match between differing body types and acting styles — constitutes an event on its own, and the movie offers handsome, old-fashioned entertainment within the framework of a serious picture. At times, writer/director James Vanderbilt could be accused of oversimplifying complex interactions and events, yet the film generally avoids feeling like a history lesson, primarily due to nips of wit, polished cinematography, and star power. This latter quality extends to the other actors, including Michael Shannon as Justice Robert H. Jackson, who served as the chief prosecutor; John Slattery as Colonel Burton C. Andrus, who oversaw the imprisonment of the Nazi leadership, and up-and-coming actor Leo Woodall (“The White Lotus,” season two) as Sergeant Howie Triest, a translator for the psychiatric team. Additional familiar faces pop up as well, such as Colin Hanks as a rival shrink and Richard E. Grant as British barrister David Maxwell Fyfe. Each of them and others, including the two leads, elevate the sometimes dry and fundamentally solemn material.Russell Crowe in ’Nuremberg.’ Scott Garfield via Sony Pictures ClassicsAs Kelley analyzes his patients, especially Göring, another storyline runs parallel, one in which Justice Jackson seeks authority and justification for bringing the men to trial. Most of these scenes are exposition-heavy but one stands out: a meeting with Pope Pius XII at the Vatican where the lawyer reminds the pontiff of the Catholic Church’s pact with the Nazi Party in 1933. This appeasement and accommodation of a blatantly immoral entity dovetails with Kelley’s growing friendship with the manipulative, shameless Nazi commander. The American even secretly delivers letters between Göring and his wife.The two plot lines collide when Jackson asks Kelley to gather intel about the defense strategy, with the psychiatrist repulsed by the violation of doctor-patient privilege. Despite his ethical appeal, Kelley has already shown the audience his opportunist, morally muddled tendencies, epitomized by his plan to write a book about his experience with the Nazi high command. Mr. Malek’s frequently smug countenance and edgy, Peter Lorre-like energy only add to a character whose often less-than-heroic actions and intentions mark him out as conflicted, contradictory, and dynamic. Some of the best scenes feature Messrs. Malek and Crowe conversing in Göring’s cell, such as when the Nazi admits he was named after a Jewish friend of the family, and when the doctor asks him about what made Hitler appealing, Göring responds: He led Germany to reclaim its former glory. Mr. Crowe can be so disarmingly amiable, almost teddy bearish, that some viewers may have a hard time reconciling what the man did and represented with such a portrayal. Still, it’s a fascinating performance, confirming the “banality of evil.” Once the film gets to the actual trial, there are no emotional fireworks from the stand from the likes of Montgomery Clift and Judy Garland as in “Judgment at Nuremberg,” which looked at a later trial prosecuting lower-level officials and judges. Mr. Vanderbilt does repeat that movie’s inclusion of concentration camp footage, which was screened in court as evidence of atrocities committed. To say one could hear a pin drop in the audience during this sequence demonstrates the material’s continued capacity to shock. “Nuremberg” sidesteps countless issues related to the trials, including the Soviet Union’s participation. It does give us, though, some intriguing anecdotes, such as Deputy Führer Rudolf Hess’s 1941 crash landing in Scotland to negotiate a peace deal with the U.K., and one involving a consequential front-page story printed in this paper. We also learn how Triest had been a German Jew who fled to America just before the war began, with Mr. Woodall delivering a moving monologue in which the character attests to Kelley that the Holocaust occurred because “people let it happen.”The final scene sees Kelley a few years later on a radio show discussing how even in the U.S., a similar slide toward authoritarianism and brutality fueled by hatred could take place. While the film reminds us of our country’s leadership during the historic, pioneering trials, it also ends on an image of the American flag, endorsing the analyst’s dark, prophetic view.

Russell Crowe and Rami Malek Star in ‘Nuremberg,’ an Old-Fashioned Serious Movie

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