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Good

EMAILPRINTTHINKFilm

Good reviews
40
4.8 User Score:

Mixed or average reviews

Based on 16 critic reviews
How did we calculate this?

Based on 12 votes
Read user comments
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Movie Info

Genre(s): Drama

Written by: John Wrathall

Directed by: Vicente Amorim

Release Date:
Theatrical: December 31, 2008

Running Time: 96 minutes, Color

Origin: UK | Germany

Summary

RATING: Not Rated

Starring Viggo Mortensen, Jason Isaacs, Jodie Whittaker, Mark Strong, Steven Mackintosh, and Gemma Jones

A German literature professor in the 1930s, John Halder explores his personal circumstances in a novel advocating compassionate euthanasia. When the book is unexpectedly enlisted by powerful political figures in support of government propaganda, Halder finds his career rising in an optimistic current of nationalism and prosperity. Yet with Halder’s change in fortune, his seemingly inconsequential decisions potentially jeopardize the people in his life with devastating effects. (THINKFilms)

What The Critics Said

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...

75

Entertainment Weekly Owen Gleiberman

Good has a stagy fustiness, but it's worth seeing for Mortensen, who makes this study of a "good German" look creepily contemporary.

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70

The Hollywood Reporter Ray Bennett

Paced deliberately in a way that reinforces the tragedy of evil flourishing when good men do nothing, Good may find boxoffice returns slow to build but the film's aim is true and patient audiences will be well rewarded.

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70

NPR Bob Mondello

Good demonstrates the surprising power of character flaws in drama. How else to explain that the portrayal of a good man who does nothing in Good should prove more dramatically compelling than the stories in "Valkyrie" and "Defiance" of good men who did good?

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60

Film Threat Scott Mendelson

An interesting idea, thoughtfully acted and visually intriguing. However, it is nearly undone by a lead character that fails to represent the general idea that the film is allegedly about.

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50

New York Post Kyle Smith

The banality of evil has met its match in the banality of Good, a Holocaust parable that barely registers a pulse.

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50

Christian Science Monitor Peter Rainer

Good contributes very little to a conundrum that has occupied historians and psychologists for half a century.

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50

The Onion (A.V. Club) Noel Murray

It's an old-fashioned hoke-fest, in which the otherness of Germany is connoted by having everyone speak with a British accent.

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50

ReelViews James Berardinelli

Viggo Mortensen looks the part but never brings it home with great conviction or passion. I never believed in the character and that greatly diminished the film's ability to argue its ethical case.

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50

USA Today Claudia Puig

Though the film opens with an intriguing burnished look, it bogs down about halfway through with talkiness and uneven pacing.

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40

Los Angeles Times Betsy Sharkey

Regrettably, the long-delayed adaptation from director Vicente Amorim and screenwriter John Wrathall gets crushed by the weight of trying to be something more; it's really just the story of a rather ordinary but disappointing man. The filmmakers reach for metaphor and allegory, but it comes at the expense of an emotional connection.

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40

New York Daily News Elizabeth Weitzman

An uncharacteristically stiff Mortensen can't break free from the clichés that constrain his character, who feels more like a symbol than a real person.

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40

Variety Dennis Harvey

Considering its theme and setting, there's something very wrong with a Good that seems merely competent, uninspired and a bit old-hat.

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40

Time Richard Schickel

Inept works like Good, which remains, like most such works, on the anecdotal fringe of the problem.

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40

New York Magazine David Edelstein

As a film, it's overly tidy, and the surreal concentration-camp climax gave at least one viewer an inappropriate fit of giggles.

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20

The New York Times Stephen Holden

In Good, the anemic screen adaptation of C. P. Taylor's play about a respectable "good German" who passively acquiesces to Hitler's agenda, Viggo Mortensen, miscast and ineptly directed by Vicente Amorim, plays John Halder, a liberal, mild-mannered literature professor who becomes a Nazi.

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0

Village Voice Ella Taylor

So incompetently mounted by Brazilian director Vicente Amorim (it takes a clumsy directorial hand to make Viggo Mortensen come on like Sesame Street's Mr. Noodle) as to be utterly incoherent.

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What Our Users Said

The average user rating for this movie is 4.8 (out of 10) based on 12 User Votes

Note: User votes are NOT included in the Metascore calculation.

April gave it a10:
Flawless performance, great acting. Intriguing, authentic movie.

Edourad D. gave it a10:
This film told me a lot about myself and our world. Subtle and affecting.

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