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Counterfeiters, The
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MPAA RATING: R for some strong violence, brief sexuality/nudity and language
Starring Karl Markovics, August Diehl, and Devid Striesow
The true story of Salomon Sorowitsch, counterfeiter extraordinaire and bohemian who was in captured by the Nazis in 1944. He agrees to help the Nazis in an organized counterfeiting operation set up to finance the war effort. It was the biggest counterfeit-money scam of all time. Over 130 million pounds sterling were printed under conditions that couldn't have been more tragic or spectacular. During the last years of the war, as the German Reich saw that the end was near, the authorities decided to produce their own banknotes in the currencies of their major war enemies. They hoped to use the duds to flood the enemy economy and fill the empty war coffers. At the Sachsenhausen concentration camp, two barracks were separated from the rest of the camp and the outside world, and transformed into a fully equipped counterfeiters workshop. "Operation Bernhard" was born. Prisoners were brought to Sachsenhausen from other camps to implement the plan, and professional printers, fastidious bank officials, and simple craftsmen all became members of the top-secret counterfeiter crew. They had a choice: If they cooperated with the enemy, they had a chance to survive as first-class prisoners in a "golden cage" with enough to eat and a bed to sleep in. If they sabotaged the operation, a sure death awaited them. For the counterfeiters, it was not only a question of saving their own lives, but also about saving their conscience as well... (Sony Classics)
| GENRE(S): | Crime | Drama | War |
| WRITTEN BY: |
Stefan Ruzowitzky
Adolf Burger |
| DIRECTED BY: | Stefan Ruzowitzky |
| RELEASE DATE: | Theatrical: February 22, 2008 |
| RUNNING TIME: | 98 minutes, Color |
| ORIGIN: | German |
| LANGUAGE(S): | Austria / Germany |
Alternative Titles: Die Fälscher
All critic scores are converted to a 100-point scale. If a critic does not indicate a score, we assign a score based on the general impression given by the text of the review. Learn more...
The average user rating for this movie is 8.4 (out of 10) based on 9 User Votes
Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.
Mike D. gave it a10:
Riveting from start to finish. I thought other foreign-film Oscar nominees were worthy of winning and was surprised to see this one win, but that was before I had seen it. It deserves the Oscar, and your $10 to see it.
Roland B. gave it a5:
note to entertainment weekly: doesn't take sides....? guessed we watched a different movie. personally i thought this was your brand name holocaust movie with all the tricks we are used to implemented to manipulate us and make us sad without offering anything innovative or new to say about the already well explored subject.
Marc K. gave it a6:
Nothing new. Doesn't break any new ground. Rather predictable. If you've seen "Schindler's List" or "The Pianist," you've seen this one.
Susan M. gave it a10:
This movie was incredibly well-done. It's clearly better when Europeans make WWII films - they do it much better than Hollywood.
Chad S. gave it an8:
A "mercy f***"; it's the first bit of English that an Auschwitz survivor named Meyer Maslow learned when he first immigrated to the states, in novelist Francine Prose's "A Changed Man". Maslow, the leader of an Amnesty International-type organization, used the holocaust for sex with college coeds when he taught at an American university. Concentration camps and post-war sex collude in "Die Falscher"(American title: "The Counterfeiters"), too, as a hooker waives her services rendered charge after she sees the identifying markings on Salomon Sorowitsch's arms that denote the Russian's first-hand experience with crematoriums and other Nazi iconography. Maslow, for all we know(Prose keeps her novel in the present), could've been a Nazi collaborator like Sorowitsch(Karl Markovics), who insists that the prostitute take the money, because the counterfeiter knows he doesn't deserve a mercy f***. Like "Schindler's List", a war profiteer(August Diehl as Adolf Burger) incidentally saves the lives of a few Jews by putting them to work, but unlike the Steven Spielberg film, there are no clear-cut heroes to put a face on Operation Bernhard. Salomon is like the marathon runner who walks throughout the race, but scores the free t-shirt, nevertheless. Salomon was "there", without really being there, which makes "Die Falscher" unique from other movies about the forced labor camps. This time around, the morally compromised only goes through the motions of expelling his bumpy past. Listen closely to what Salomon tells the whore after his self-abnegating exorcism.
Fantasy gave it a10:
Excellent! Most worthy of the praise and honors it ireceived.
Dennis B. gave it an8:
Well-written, with realistic, nuanced performances helped by a story whose shadings of right and wrong hold your interest from beginning to end. Not as emotionally powerful as Schindler's List, but worth seeing just the same. Makes you wonder how you would have behaved in the same situation.
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