NUREMBERG (2025)

Rubbish.  Stepping away from his day-job (producing & occasionally writing schlock comic-horror film series (SCREAM; MURDER MYSTERY; READY OR NOT), James Vanderbilt triple threats*, hanging up a directing shingle (his sophomore effort) with a new angle on the post-WWII Nazi Nuremberg trials that put top surviving Third Reich officers in the docket to answer for the Holocaust.  Well cast and well received (critically & commercially), it opens with a G.I. peeing on a Swastika decal pasted on a rock at war’s end, and Field Marshall Hermann Göring surrendering.  With dumb comeback dialogue covering exposition before moving on to standard-issue pre-trial moves & courtroom melodrama (Vanderbilt also betraying an unfortunate addiction to matched transition edits), the main gimmick concerns Rami Malek, an army psychiatrist brought in to work up quick profiles of the Nazi defendants in hope of giving the prosecution a leg up during proceedings.  With Rami taking a special interest in Göring’s personality (Russell Crowe with just a bit of unnecessary padding), the relationship starts looking too chummy for comfort to the military (especially Colonel John Slattery).  How else to discover what makes such evil tic?  But will it lead prosecutor Michael Shannon to take his advise or will that wily Kraut slip out of yet another noose?  Apparently, there’s a certain amount of truth behind all this.  But Vanderbilt’s cheap melodramatic touch and reflexive handling of character motive make any chance at belief irrelevant.  Something none of the film’s 52 (!)  producers noticed under the weight of Brian Tyler’s misguided, suspense-heavy score.  One more film that hangs its importance on the importance of its subject matter; and leaves a bad taste in your mouth.*

DOUBLE-BILL/LINK:  *Much the same could be said about another shot at the same subject, producer/director Stanley Kramer’s JUDGEMENT AT NUREMBERG/’61.  Or of an early writing credit for Vanderbilt, ZODIAC/’07, also well received critically if not commercially, but which points the way to what’s wrong here.   https://maksquibs.blogspot.com/2008/06/zodiac-2007.html