Four stars (out of five). Rating: R, for violence, profanity and nudity
By Derrick Bang • Originally published in The Davis Enterprise, 4.24.08
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All these years later, the Holocaust still reveals grim and fascinating stories.
And fresh stories of triumph, as well.
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| Maste forger Salomon Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics, second from left) is dismayed to discover that the idealistic Adolf Burger (August Diehl, far left) is sabotaging the faked American dollars produced by a team of incarcerated Jews that includes Atze (Veit Stubner, second from right) and Dr. Klinger (August Zirner). |
The victory isn't immediately apparent in The Counterfeiters, the Austrian/ German co-production that just took the best foreign film Academy Award. Writer/director Stefan Ruzowitzky's compelling tale reminds us that heroes come in unusual packages, and that the greatest drama occurs when a single human being sets aside a lifetime of self-interest for an act that serves the greater good.
Ruzowitzky's film is both a complex character study and a fairly straightforward depiction of an extraordinarily clever — if all but forgotten — Nazi scheme that, if more successful, could have prolonged the war in Germany's favor. Although not entirely a failure, the plan did not unfold quickly enough to prevent Germany's defeat in 1945, and the credit for this spiritual triumph belongs to a cluster of incarcerated Jews who had been hand-picked for a most unusual work detail.
The film actually focuses on one man: Salomon "Sally" Sorowitsch (Karl Markovics), based as precisely as possible on real-life Russian-Jewish artist Salomon Smolianoff, one of the most notorious forgers of art and money in his day. After a brief prologue, the narrative unfolds as an extended flashback that begins in Berlin in 1936, where Sorowitsch moves casually in a world of swindlers, gigolos and loose women.
He's ruthlessly pragmatic, caring nothing for the rise of Nazi brutality or what it means to his own people; he demands top payment for every passport he forges for a Jew trying to flee the country. But like all those who believe themselves too smart, Sorowitsch gets careless: A lingering dalliance with a beautiful woman results in his being captured by the Nazi secret police.
The arresting officer, Inspector Friedrich Herzog (Devid Striesow), clearly admires Sorowitsch's skill and panache, but of course that doesn't change matters.
Initially sent to a typical concentration camp, Soro-witsch intelligently reveals his artistic skills and becomes something of a personal artist for the vain SS officers. He thus survives for several years before an unexpected transfer to the Sachsenhausen concentration camp.
Sorowitsch is re-united with Herzog, now promoted and in charge of "Operation Bernhard," a counterfeiting operation on an enormous scale. The goal: to design and mass-produce first British pounds, and then U.S. dollars, in order to weaken the economies of both countries.
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films), a seasoned warrior who disguises his prowess beneath the bedraggled appearance of a seemingly wine-besotted beggar. 
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), the producers who seem determined to build an empire on romantic disaster comedies, the way John Hughes cornered the sensitive teen market back in the 1980s. 
). Apatow's suffering male protagonists always remain sympathetic, despite their lesser qualities, and they try to do right by the women in their lives (even while frequently screwing things up). 
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. Segel also wrote the script, which he clearly fashioned to his own strengths. 
), star of a successful TV series titled Crime Scene: Scene of the Crime.
were too genteel. 
, an equally ludicrous tale of bent cops gone from bad to worse. Apparently determined to sully the LAPD badge even further, we're once again thrown onto these mean streets, expected (as viewers) to buy into macho nonsense where vile cops are so far gone that they don't even watch out for each other. 
with his integrity intact, and that film's also a mess. Here, though, his line readings are shrill and hysterical, his eyes literally popping out of his skull; he looks for all the world like a junkie in desperate need of his next fix. 
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, which has made an equally engaging leap to the big screen under the capable hands of husband-and-wife directing team Mark Levin and Jennifer Flackett. The resulting film is equal parts Swiss Family Robinson and A Little Princess, with a clever side story involving a best-selling author whose brawny, macho series hero couldn't be less like his creator. 
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. All these movies have been marked by intelligent scripts, a captivating and often whimsical directorial touch and — most important — respect for the source material. 
, since this new film boasts a similar romantic triangle anchored by a tough-talking female reporter — that would be Renée Zellweger's Lexie Littleton — with strong echoes of Rosalind Russell's Hildy Johnson. 
), a golden-boy WWI hero coasting on his larger-than-life feat of having forced an entire squadron of German soldiers to surrender. Single-handedly, no less. 
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